


Not What I Had In Mind

by YorkandDelta



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Abusive Relationship with an Original Character, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Fake AH Crew, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, OT5 to OT6, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YorkandDelta/pseuds/YorkandDelta
Summary: The Fake AH Crew held Jeremy hostage for three days by mistake. Will apologizing be enough to convince him to help them out with a heist?Jeremy gets the worst first impression of the crew, but he learns to love them. Maybe a little more than he should.





	1. The Wake Up Call

The first thing Jeremy noticed when he woke up was the terrible crick in his neck. The second thing he noticed was that he was tied to a chair. Probably what caused the crick. This was not an ideal thing to wake up to.

He cautiously lifted his head to see where he was. It seemed to be a plain concrete room. Light slanted in through small windows high on the wall. So a basement maybe. 

Movement caught his eye. A figure was standing facing him at a table against the wall. It was a red-headed woman in a white dress. Or… Looking closer, it was more like a plain night gown. The woman was examining the silver tools on the table. Jeremy’s blood ran cold when he realized most looked like medical instruments. The most unsettling thing about this whole situation, aside from  _ everything _ , was that the expression on the woman’s face was blank. Vacant. She held a knife up to her face, turning it this way and that, without seeming to see it. Jeremy shifted in his chair and suddenly the brown eyes snapped to him. Still empty of expression, the woman stared at him past the knife. Unblinking.  She started to tip forwards, as if about to fall, but at the last second her foot shot out and caught her. With jerky movements the woman walked towards him, never breaking eye contact, still holding the knife. Jeremy only just noticed she was barefoot. Every horror game and movie Jeremy knew flashed before his eyes.

The woman stopped in front of him. She finally broke eye contact with Jeremy as she started running the knife up and down his arms. Not enough to break the skin, not at first, but soon the sharp edge of the blade caught and beads of blood appeared along the scratches. All the while the woman stared blankly at the knife.

_ What the fuck _ . Was all Jeremy could think. He tried to struggle, but he was terrified of aggravating the woman in white. 

A door clicked open. This seemed to wake up the woman, who finally smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. Jeremy felt the handle of the knife being pressed into his palm until he curled his fingers around it. The woman put the finger of her now empty hand up to her mouth in a shushing gesture before breaking out in maniacal giggles.

“There you are!” A male voice called out. A man with an impressive beard and tattoos came into view from behind Jeremy. He was followed by two nearly identical looking men. “We’ve been looking everywhere.” The two men grabbed the woman on either arm. She lifted her feet off the ground so that they were forced to carry her. All the while giggling. The two men carried her out of Jeremy’s sight, but the laughing didn’t stop until he heard the door close. 

The tall man ran a hand through his hair. “I am so sorry about her. Normally we keep her locked up, but she does get out now and then. I hope she didn’t spook you too much.” The man held out his hand and Jeremy handed him the knife out of reflex. Instead of cutting the ropes like his tired mind expected, the man walked towards the table and grabbed another chair to bring over to Jeremy. “I’m sure you could tell, but she’s… simple. Great for a shag though, which is the only reason we keep her around.”

_ What. The. FUCK. _

Jeremy had no idea what trouble he had gotten himself into now, but he needed to get out. 

“So. Do you know why you’re here?”

“N-no sir.” Jeremy stuttered out.

“Well, have you ever heard of a guy named Joe Johnson? JJ to his friends?”

Fuck. He had just had a meeting with JJ about a job yesterday. Or longer. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been here. The meeting was for a job. JJ offered Jeremy a lot of money to make a target disappear. A target who he had been warned was in a gang. 

The answer to the question must have played across his face, because the man just leaned back in the chair. “Tell me what you know about JJ.”

“Nothing!”

“Yeah. The typical answer. Let’s move on from there, alright.”

“No, really! I don’t know anything! I swear!”

Hands descended onto his shoulders, making Jeremy jump because he hadn’t realized anyone was behind him. 

“I’m sure you know  _ something _ . Let’s start with some easy questions.” The second man’s voice was deep and threatening in his ear. Jeremy shuddered in spite of himself.

“What’s your name, kid?” Asked the first man. 

“Tim. Uh, Tim Smith.”

The tattooed man sighed and started playing with the bloody knife that Jeremy only just now realized was still in his hand. “Telling me such an obvious lie is not a great start. We already have people tracking you. We’ll know this all soon enough. Don’t you want to tell us the truth now so we can trust the rest of the things you say? Let’s try another one. How long have you been in Los Santos?”

Long enough to fuck up this badly apparently. “Only two weeks.” Jeremy saw no harm in telling the truth here. Maybe his newness will cut him some slack with his captors.

“Hmm. And how long have you known JJ?”

“I only spoke to him once on the phone and once in person. Please, I really can’t tell you anything about him.”

The man waved a hand. “Please. I know all there is to know about JJ. His boss has wanted me dead for years. Looks like you’re the unlucky soul to take him up on the offer. The person I am interested in is you. Tell me about yourself.”

Jeremy clammed up. He knew there was a bounty on his head back in Boston. It was the reason he ran in the first place. If the stranger was right and they did have people looking him up they’ll find out soon enough. But keeping quiet now might just buy him time to escape.

The bearded man tried a few more questions, the second man pushing down on his shoulders threateningly. Eventually they left to “give him time to think about his situation.”

It was quiet in the room. The light gradually dimmed, signaling the end of the day. Jeremy must have dozed off again because the next thing he knew it was bright again and there were footsteps coming from behind him. 

It was the same man as yesterday. Reading something in a folder. 

“Jeremy Dooley. Age 23. Alias Rimmy Tim. Used to work for the mob up in Boston and-” here me man paused to let out a low whistle “pissed them off enough to get a $12,000.00 bounty on his head. Impressive. Used to do underground fighting. Arrested for shoplifting a number of times.” He snapped the folder closed. “Anything you want to add?”

Jeremy just stared at him. “Alrighty then. I don’t actually care about your whole sob story. I just want to know about the job JJ asked you to do. What kind of job was it? A hit? Did he tell you anything about your target?”

Jeremy said nothing. The truth was he didn’t know a thing about his target. Not even his name. He had just been shown a picture and told that he would be contacted with a where and when. He also knew a sniper would be covering him if he needed it. The problem was he didn’t think his interrogator would believe him, so he kept quiet. 

“So that’s how it’s gonna be, eh? Why are you protecting JJ, kid? You can’t be loyal to him, you said yourself you barely know him. And trust me, he isn’t the type to swoop in and rescue his hired killers.”

Jeremy knew that. He knew that his chances of getting out of here were slim, but if he had anything left it was his pride which was telling him not to be a snitch. He stared at his lap instead of listening to the man. 

“Come on, dude! Help me out here! I don’t want to be the bad guy. Just tell me about the job you took and you can go on your way!” Jeremy didn’t react to the pleas. He knew this was the ‘good cop’ part of the interview and expected the rough hands of the ‘bad cop’ on his shoulders any minute now. They never came. Eventually Tattoos got bored and left again. Jeremy was alone for a long time before the light in the room faded on another day. His stomach growling was the only sound he heard. 

It must have been hours later when the door behind him slammed open and an electric light flashed on.

The man from the day before rushed in front of him, his hair a disheveled mess, and only dressed in sweats and a loose t-shirt like he had just gotten out of bed. 

“Hey, uh, I don’t know how to say this but….” He paused, frowned, and ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up even more. “Okay. I know you haven’t really been answering me. But. Can you just do one ‘yes or no’ question?”

Jeremy stared at him. The man held up a photograph of Jeremy’s target. It was a mug shot, but it was unmistakably the same person. 

“Is this your target?” The man asked. Jeremy nodded, curious about why this was such an important question at whatever time of night it was. The man looked horrified and looked at someone over Jeremy’s shoulder. He collapsed in the chair he had been using earlier and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jeremy risked a glance behind him and saw a man in a leather jacket with garish face paint covering his features. The man moved to lean against the wall with his arms crossed. 

The first man finally looked up at Jeremy. “Well. I have some good news and some bad news for you, kid.”

Great. Jeremy was so excited to hear what this was. “Shoot.”

“So. This is Abrams. Leader of the Head Hunter bike gang. The Head Hunters and us have been rivals for years. Abrams has personally tried to kill me and the people I care about countless times and hired people like you to do it even more. He was shot dead at an arms deal tonight. They killed the sniper who did it.

“Fuck. What’s the good news?”

“Uh, no. That was the good news. Because we thought you were hired to take out one of our guys, you see? Turns out you were never a threat to us, ha ha. The bad news is that JJ was actually the second in command of the Head Hunters and he took over tonight. He is the one that killed the sniper but he says there was a second person involved and put a hit out on someone who matches your description. He must have hired you two to get his boss out of the way, and since you weren’t at the hit you actually know the truth. If the other bikers know JJ was behind their old leader’s death they’ll rip him apart. So now you’re a liability to him that he needs taken out.”

The words hung in the air between them. Jeremy digested the information. It was a lot to take in after being stuck in a chair with no food. 

The man was the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry for kidnapping you and everything. But as I said, you’re not a threat now so… I’m gonna untie you now okay?”

The ropes at Jeremy’s arms and legs were cut away and he rubbed at his wrists where they were raw from struggling. “So what now?” he asked.

“Well. Now you can lay low here. We’ve been meaning to take over the Head Hunters’ territory for a while now and with the power struggle that is bound to happen we have a perfect opportunity. We can keep you safe from JJ and we aren’t as weird as we seem! Promise!” He grinned completely unconvincingly. 

Jeremy looked over at goon number two, realizing his face was painted like a skull. As if that was normal. No way was he staying with these freaks. “Will you let me leave?”

“Yeah, if you want to. But it won’t be safe for a while -”

“I don’t care. I want to leave.”

“Okay. Can’t say I blame ya. Sorry again. This was a bad mix up. Do you want us to drop you off somewhere?”

A bad mix up was a mild way of putting it. He requested to go to the main bus station. It should be open this time of night, whatever time it was, and he could catch a ride back to his place. 

Tall, dark and masked led him to a garage. He was met by a woman in an eye catching hawaiian shirt. Her hair was tied up in a short ponytail. She offered a seat in an understated sedan and Jeremy got in, hoping they weren’t just going to kill him and leave his body somewhere. 

He expected to drive in silence, but the woman spoke up. “I’m really sorry for our first meeting, Jeremy. It was an intimidation tactic, it unnerves people real good.” Jeremy started at her, confused. There is nothing intimidating about driving a car. But then she checked her blind spot and Jeremy saw her short red hair. This couldn’t be the woman with the knife? He gaped at her. She returned his look with an apologetic smile. “I know what Geoff implied, and believe me, it isn’t true. No one in our crew would ever do something like that. It was all an act to put you on edge.”

“Well it fucking worked.” Jeremy stared out the window and ignored the driver for the rest of the trip. 

When they pulled up at the bus station, the woman handed Jeremy a card before unlocking the door for him. “Call us if you need help. It is the least we can do after all this.” 

Jeremy just slammed the door and walked towards a crowd of late night partiers. 


	2. The Scammer

Jeremy didn’t want to go back to his apartment, he had only been kidnapped a few blocks away from it, so it was certain his captors knew where it was. The problem was that he didn’t know if he had enough money for a hotel and quite frankly, he was too tired to come up with a safer plan. When he got there his suspicions were confirmed and the door was hanging loose on its hinges. All was dark and quiet inside so Jeremy hoped the mild threat of his landlord and neighbours was enough that whoever had broken in had cleared out by now. 

The inside was trashed. He wasn’t exactly a neat person to begin with, but everything that had been kept in cupboards was thrown on the floor. Whoever had been here had been very thorough at searching the place. Jeremy picked his way over the broken dishes and made his way to the bathroom and then to bed. It wasn’t the smartest idea, but he crashed on his mattress without even pushing off the crap that had been piled there and fell deeply asleep. 

He woke up to find out that nothing had changed while he slept. He was just thankful nothing had gotten worse. The first thing he did was check if there was any food. He found a can of Spaghetti-Os and to his pleasant surprise, there was still coffee and a working coffee machine on his counter. They had left his fridge open and all of the food in there had spoiled. 

When he finished eating he went to his closet. Luckily they hadn’t found the fake ceiling he installed. His go bag was still in there with cash, fake IDs, some meal replacement bars, and his guns. He tossed in some of the clothing that was on the floor and left that shithole of an apartment for good. Survival was the only thing on his mind. He knew the mob back in Boston were after him, he had been told JJ and possibly the Head Hunters were as well, but he didn’t know how much he could trust the lunatics who had kidnapped him. They might have been the ones to trash his place, they might still be after him.

His first stop was one of the many sketchy motels. He had stayed in a similar one when he first got to the city. They had newspapers in the lobby telling him it was Saturday. He had been pulled off the street into the unmarked white van on Tuesday so a full four days had gone by. 

His next step was food. He went to the corner store on the corner to buy a bunch meals he could put in the microwave in his room. Once he was showered and fed he planned his next moves. All of his electronics had been taken from him. He would need to go to a gas station to get a new phone. He may even check out the pawn shops to see if there were any questionably acquired laptops he could pick up for cheap. 

Jeremy checked the money left in his bag. There wasn’t much there. He hadn’t been able to get any more while in the city and the trip from Boston had eaten into most of his reserve. He had enough for one more night at the hotel, but then he would have to decide if he was staying in the city or leaving and trying his luck somewhere else. He could always break in somewhere to get more funds, but that was a risk he didn’t know if he could take. He’d heard the cops in this city were so dumb they couldn’t tip water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, but if he was caught that could catch the attention of any number of people he was running from.

He decided he would go to a gas station and buy the phone. While he was there he could case the place to see if it was worth holding up later.

When he walked out of the hotel he noticed a tough looking guy reading the newspaper at the bus stop bench across the street. It struck Jeremy as odd, the guy was at least 20 years too young to be reading a newspaper. Usually guys his age were glued to their phones. The guy had a red and black bandana tied around his bicep, drawing attention to how buff he was. Jeremy was paranoid about being followed, so he took extra care to catalogue every detail of the guys appearance. 

He walked farther into the nice part of the city to get to a gas station. He wanted one that might give him a good haul while not being too close to police presence. He bought a crappy preloaded flip phone and decided this place looked promising for later. On his way out of the shop he saw a guy on a motorcycle filling up at the pump. The biker had a red and black bandana hanging out of his back pocket. Jeremy’s heart sank. He was being followed by one of the gangs. Not the mob, those weren’t their colours, thank god. It was probably the Head Hunters, which made the crazy tattooed guy from yesterday seem a little more credible. 

Jeremy set off at a brisk walk into the business district of the city, hoping to lose the gang in the crowds of weekend shoppers. He had no luck, and every time he turned around he caught sight of rough looking characters following not too far behind. 

All of a sudden he remembered that the card the redheaded woman gave him was still in his pocket. He pulled it out with his new phone and saw a green star on a black background with a number written on it. Hopefully that meant this gangs colours were green and black and not the red he kept seeing on the goons following him. 

He dialed his new phone and held it up to his ear. After a few rings a low voice answered. 

“Hey. This is - ugh. This is Jeremy. You gave me your card last night and it looks like I need help after all.” He didn’t think until he said it out loud what a bad idea this was. The only reason he had to trust them was that they hadn’t actually hurt him while he was in custody with them and they had let him go when he asked. 

“Jeremy! I didn’t think we’d hear from you. What’s going on?”

“There are people following me. They all have some kind of red and black colours on.”

“Fuck. Okay. Where are you now?”

“I just got to Main and 5th.”

“I can be there in a few minutes. Find a crowded store and hang out there. Text me which one you’re in.”

Jeremy heard an engine rev from the other line and thanked the woman before hanging up. He saw a store on the other side of the street that would hopefully deter the people following.

The peppy blonde woman behind the counter smiled brightly at him as he walked in. “Hi there! How can I help you today?”

Jeremy looked around the store and said “Uh, I’m looking for something for my niece. What do 9 year old girls like these days?” It was the Disney store and it was full of princesses, parents and kids.

The helpful sales girl brought him over to a store with eye watering pink and purple merchandise. Everything was horribly glittery. He was discussing the merits of a Tiana vs Moana craft kit when his phone rang. “Ah, sorry, I have to take this.” he apologized to the sales girl.

Answering the phone he saw the sedan from yesterday parked outside. He opened the door to see the same woman behind the wheel. Jeremy threw his go bag in the footwell and climbed in, glad he had thought not to leave his stuff in the hotel.

“So” She said. “Long time no see.”

Jeremy huffed and crossed his arms.

“I’m sorry you were dragged into this mess. But don’t worry, we’ll set you up in one of our safe houses for now. This whole thing will blow over in a few weeks. And after that you’ll be known as the one to take down Abrams, and that’s a nice thing for your resume!”

The woman smiled in spite of Jeremy’s glare. He didn’t answer her.

“Call me Jack, by the way.”

Jeremy finally sighed. She was too cheerful to be mad at for long. And she had rescued him from the other gang. “Nice to meet you Jack.”

She beamed at him. It wasn’t long before they were pulling into an underground garage. Jeremy was pretty sure this was a different place than before, but he didn’t know the city well enough to be positive. They took the elevator up to what appeared to be an office building but was very comfortably furnished. Jack led him past offices to what could be a break room. Inside were two young men playing Mario Kart. 

Jack turned to Jeremy and said “I’m going to leave you here while I make some calls. Michael, Gavin.” She addressed the gamers, “Play nice with Jeremy.”

The game was immediately paused and two sets of eyes turned to the doorway. 

“It’s that Dooley bloke !” The thinner man said in a British accent. Jeremy cringed at the use of his last name. The other man seemed to notice his reaction. 

“Ignore Gavin. His hacking made him lose all sense of boundaries and manners. I’m Michael. Glad to see Geoff and Ryan didn’t scare you away. 

So the lanky British guy is the one who looked up all his information. He probably knew more about Jeremy than Jeremy did. That was never fun. 

He was soon roped into the game of Mario Kart and was beginning to enjoy competing with Michael and Gavin when Jack reappeared. “I found you a safe house. It comes with a roommate though.”

“Oh. Thank you.” 

Jeremy stood to leave, but Michael objected. “Don’t go yet! The race isn’t over and I need you to beat Gavin so that that fuck doesn’t take the trophy”

Jack just laughed and grabbed another controller. They played a couple more games. Jeremy, Gavin, and Michael were all evenly matched and were competing for first but Jack was consistently around 8th or 9th. Everyone had a great time and Jeremy actually forgot he had been chased by gang members this morning and was playing games with members of a gang that had kidnapped him for three days. 

He forgot about it until a shadow loomed at the door. The figure was wearing the same leather jacket as the guy with the facepaint yesterday but today he was sporting a black skull mask. Jeremy froze in horror. The guy hadn’t actually done anything to him other than threaten him, but it was still unnerving to see him in the doorway. 

His character must have crashed into a wall, because Gavin glanced over his shoulder at whatever was distracting Jeremy. “Ryan you loon! Stop hoovering in the doorway.”

The figure chuckled and slouched into the room. Jeremy turned back to the screen to see that he was now in last place. He finished the game in silence, listening to Gavin crooning about how Jeremy’s poor performance in the last race secured him the trophy after all.

Jeremy looked at Jack who gave him a sympathetic look and cocked her head towards the door. Jeremy took that as his cue to slip out.  

Jack led him back to the elevator to the car. “Ryan isn’t so bad once you get to know him. One thing about the Fakes is that we all love theatricality. Messing with hostages, over the top heists, it’s all a part of our brand, I guess you could call it. We’ve earned quite the reputation. Have you heard of us up in Boston?”

“Uh, no. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. We’re still a fairly small crew all things considered. And our more successful heists don’t make the news.” This time Jack led him to a pretty blue sports car. Jack continued chatting as she drove. “The Fake AH Crew split off from the Roosters a few years back. You’ve probably heard of them?” Jeremy had, they were a large crime syndicate that had numerous allies along the West Coast. 

“Geoff, the one who was asking you questions, decided to set up shop in Los Santos. We focus more on high profile robberies, espionage, and fraud. We’re known as one of the ‘cleaner’ groups because we don’t do drug deals and we try to limit casualties to a minimum. We’ve got about a dozen people working for us full time, and we hire more casuals when we need it. Again, we usually make use of our connections from the Roosters so any expertise we’re missing we can just borrow.” Jack turned into a quaint residential neighbourhood. “We get along with most of the low level gangs. Usually we don’t have a problem with them as long as they stay away from human trafficking and the truly nasty drugs. Scummy ones like the Head Hunters don’t usually last too long here. We’ve been waiting to take them down a peg for a while now.”

She parked in front of one of the cookie cutter homes at the corner of one of the streets. “All this is common knowledge by the way. If anyone else ties you to a chair and asks you questions, feel free to tell them that. Although, let’s try to avoid that for a little while, yeah? Anyway, come on in and meet Matt.”

They went to the front door and Jack knocked politely. A scruffy looking man opened it. He had long brown hair with a pink streak in the front and a beard. He greeted them and welcomed them inside. 

“Thank you for agreeing to house Jeremy for a bit Matt.” Jack said. 

“Yeah, thanks man.” Jeremy agreed. 

“Nah, dude. Don’t mention it. Part of what I signed up for living in one of the Fake’s safe houses. Make yourself at home.”

Jeremy was shown into a small room on the second floor. It had an ensuite bathroom and the dresser was filled with clothes of all different sizes. Jack said goodbye to them and told Jeremy to call if he needed anything. Matt pointed Jeremy to the entertainment system in the living room, told him he could help himself to the kitchen and disappeared into his office. 

Around noon Matt came back out of his office for lunch to find Jeremy exploring one of his Minecraft worlds. It was like a theme park with different activities. “Dude, did you build all this?”

“Yeah, the guys all come over and play it now and then. It’s fun.”

“It’s amazing!”

Over lunch the two men bonded over their love of video games. Matt had a fun sense of humor and was so relaxed that Jeremy quickly felt comfortable around him. Matt told him he was “on call” for the afternoon so the two started playing a co-op game to pass the time. 

Not long into the campaign, Matt’s phone rang. He paused the game and wandered back into his office to answer. Curious, Jeremy made no effort not to listen in. “Hello you’ve reached the IRA information desk. Christopher speaking, how may I help you.” a pause. “Absolutely. If you tell me your Social Insurance Number I can look up the account for you.” another pause. “Okay Mr. Thompson, I’m seeing that there was an error on your taxes from 2014, do you have a copy of your tax return from that year? Not a problem. What you can do now is mail us a money order for $4,598.00. If we receive it in the next 30 days we won’t need to take any further legal action. If you find a copy of that tax return and want to dispute the charge you can submit a claim within the next 3 years.” Matt then proceeded to rattle off an address and website for the person before thanking him, hanging up, and returning to the game. 

This happened every hour or so. Matt would answer the phone and pretend to work for the Revenue Agency. However, Jeremy noticed that he would change the script for some people. In a few calls he mentioned the problem could have been triggered by a glitch in the software and asked a series of questions about whether the caller was on any social assistance or had student debt. For one of them he actually told the caller that her account had been updated to be in the clear, and gave her instructions on how to check her account activity that actually sounded legitimate. 

When Matt came back into the room he decided to ask about it, “Hey, what are those calls about?”

“You know the spam calls you get about a problem with your taxes and you have to send a money order in or you go to jail?”

“Yeah, I get those calls all the time.”

“If you follow through to talk to an operator it calls someone like me. It makes it sound more legit.”

“But you didn’t make that last person pay. You said it was a software glitch.”

“Yeah, well. We don’t want to steal from someone who is already struggling, that is just too shitty. We try to target rich business owners who think they can skirt around the law or landlords who haven’t declared all their properties. If they are dumb enough to think there is a problem with their accounts and not realize it is a scam then we get their money. We call it the Idiot Revenue Agency collecting the Stupid tax. But like, struggling single moms on welfare or new immigrants? We don’t want to make their lives worse. Sometimes if they seem really desperate I’ll actually go in and erase their debt.”

“Wow, that is some vigilante shit.”

Matt snorted and went to stick his head in the fridge. “That is a great description of the Fakes dude. Did you know they do a “fundraiser” every year? Last year they donated a million dollars to one of the kids hospitals here. I think there are still parts of the city that haven’t recovered. You do not want to know where the money comes from.” He came back with an energy drink and sprawled back on the couch. 

“Wow, that is amazing! And a little terrifying”

“Yeah I like working with them. They’re not just greedy assholes like some of the criminals in this town and they’re super fun too.”

Jeremy thought about what Matt told him that night as he lay in the man’s guest room. From what he had seen of the Fakes so far, except the time when he was their captive, they were the polar opposite from the mob back in Boston. That group called themselves the Family, but he never got the sense that any of them actually liked spending time with each other. The Fakes seemed like they were actually friends if they gamed together and spoke so highly of each other and Jeremy had never heard of criminals who donated so heavily to charity, even if it was ill gotten gains. He was curious about the crew, and wouldn’t mind learning more about them. 


	3. The Raid

Jeremy spent another day at Matt’s place just playing games and scrolling through Reddit on a spare tablet. It gave him a lot of time to think about what he was doing with his life and what he should be doing next. That was an activity that always made him anxious. It wasn’t like he started taking hits from biker gangs because his life was full of opportunity. 

He couldn’t go home to Boston. He had been working for a mob there but had to leave town after an unfortunate accident in the boxing ring. He was one of the Boss’s prize fighters. He was defending his title when some upstart decided to enter the fight. Kid tried pulling some spiderman shit and came in with a mask. That should have been Jeremy’s first clue that something wasn’t right. The guy barely knew what he was doing, but damn, he was persistent. Jeremy tried going easy on him at the start, rough him up a little, knock him down, and hope the kid had enough sense not to get back up. But the idiot just kept coming at him. Eventually Jeremy decided to just knock him out with an uppercut to the jaw so the fight would be over. 

How was he supposed to know that when the kid fell over he’d hit his head on the edge of the ring? It was usually padded, but had ripped that afternoon and no one had the time to fix it. 

How was he supposed to know the idiot kid was actually the Boss’s 16 year old son? Dumb kid who wanted to prove himself before he was ready and wasn’t used to hearing  _ no _ . Decided to show everyone what a hot shot he was by taking out the best fighter in the ring. He didn’t tell anyone his plans, no one knew who was under that mask. No one could have warned Jeremy.

Jeremy will forever be haunted with Joey’s face, once they pulled the mask off and wiped off the blood. He had a black eye and a split lip and his face was slack and expressionless.  

He only waited around long enough to hear that Joey, little Joey who he had taught to throw his first punch all those years ago, was in critical condition with likely permanent brain damage, before he cleared out of town. He may have been close with his boss, but he knew the man was not one to forgive and forget an injury to his family, regardless of whether or not it was an accident. He was right to do it. The bounty was already on his head before he left Massachusetts. 

Then, of course, the very first job he found in Los Santos turned out to be a set up which ended up getting him kidnapped. The actual kidnapping wasn’t so bad really, Jack’s little performance at the beginning had spooked him, he’d admit, but seeing her afterwards act completely normal, kind even, made it feel more like a trip to a haunted house: after you left you appreciate the actors’ skill. He wondered if the leader, Geoff, and the creepy face paint guy were acting too and if they would turn out to be normal after all. 

As it happened, he got a chance to find out on his third day hiding from the Head Hunters. He was woken up by a call from Jack asking if he’d like to discuss his next steps back at their base. He’d agreed and a short car ride later was traveling up the elevator with Jack again. 

This time the break room was empty and the TV off. Jack led him past it to a board room with a map of Los Santos pinned to the wall. There were pictures around it of a concrete building and some security guards on either side, probably an upcoming job. 

The tattooed man was there waiting for them. He got up, shook Jeremy’s hand, and introduced himself as Geoff like Jack had said. They all sat down, Geoff at the head of the table, Jack to his right, and Jeremy a few seats away on the other side.

“So I guess I’ll start by apologizing again, Jeremy. All I knew was that you’d accepted a job from JJ and normally those jobs end with guns pointed at someone I care about. I hope you can see why I reacted the way I did.”

Jeremy shrugged and said, “No worries, man.” surprised that the gang member was so worried about his  _ feelings _ . 

“We’re going after JJ tonight. I wanted to know if you’d like to be involved. I think you could really cause some trouble for him, and help us out while you’re doing it. We’d pay you of course.”

Those were the magic words to Jeremy. “Yeah. I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

“Help with the shooty part of the break in. We’re going to take out as many of the core members as we can. The plan is to get to JJ and the other top dogs to take each other out and exterminate the ones that try to get away.. I’m hoping with you there you can call him out on being the one to order the hit on Abrams and that will confuse people enough that they’ll fight with each other too. Hopefully the lackies who aren’t really involved with the politics and power trips will just get the hell out of there when they have a chance. We don’t need to bother with them.”

Jeremy nodded. “I can do that.”

They went over the plan in more detail and discussed Jeremy’s pay before Jack led him to their armoury on the floor above. He picked out some guns and ammo and Jack shoved a bullet proof vest at him. 

It was still early afternoon, but Jack offered to take him to lunch, to make up for his horrible introduction to the crew. Jeremy was expecting to go to a fast food place, or a diner. Even an Applebees or Olive Garden seemed too fancy for the occasion. So Jeremy was surprised when Jack pulled up outside an upscale Barbeque restaurant with the reasoning that they had brisket that reminded her of home. 

If Jeremy was intimidated by the decor it was nothing compared to the prices he saw after opening the menu. The cheapest meal was over $25! The waiter came to take their drink order. Jack asked for a craft beer and ordered queso to start. Jeremy asked for water. At her raised eyebrows he reminded her that he’d be working that night. Jack asked him what he was thinking of getting. He did the math with tax and as much of a tip as he could reasonably give and figured he could get one of the sandwiches. 

Jack frowned when he told her. “You should really try the brisket or the pulled pork. They melt in your mouth they are so tender and juicy! If that isn’t your thing they have steak or ribs.” 

Jeremy’s mouth started to water. Everything sounded so good! He had been polite at Matt’s place, not wanting to eat him out of house and home, but the truth was he had gone for a while without getting a good meal, even before getting kidnapped. He ignored the rumbling in his stomach and told Jack he wasn’t that hungry with a smile. 

She crossed her arms and leaned forwards on the table. “You know,” she said in a whisper that wouldn’t carry to the next table. “Last heist I walked away with ten grand. That wasn’t the total, just my cut. So I didn’t ask you if you liked meat and then take you to a barbeque place for you to order water and a smoked meat sandwich.” 

Jeremy turned bright red. He hadn’t been expecting her to offer to pay, he’d thought she meant take him to lunch as in drive him somewhere. He agreed that the pulled pork did sound amazing. Jack smiled and patted his hand. The waiter came with their queso and took their order. Jack couldn’t convince Jeremy to get an alcoholic drink, but she did upgrade him to a soda. 

While trying not to inhale the delicious appetizer, Jeremy and Jack started making small talk to get to know each other. He learned she was from Texas and she hinted that she had some experience as a pilot but was vague about her full history. Jeremy understood, he was still a stranger after all. He was the same. Sharing some funny stories from his teen years without being too detailed. 

Their jobs and their plans for the future were also not the best topics for a public restaurant so they ended up setting on talking about their hobbies. Jeremy found out that he and Jack had a lot in common. Jack was knowledgeable on the Los Santos fighting scene, apparently she and Michael were hefty gamblers. She said if Jeremy was interested she could put him in touch with some of the more reputable agents. He tentatively agreed. It was something he could do to earn some cash while he was in the city. He’d need to stay under the radar, it was very similar to what he did in Boston, and it was a small enough community that word might get around. 

He and Jack also bonded over video games. She told him that her little ‘performance’ had been inspired by the nurse from Dead by Daylight and that the crew played together so often they also had a running joke of being as creepy as possible as the killers. 

The food came and Jack was right. It was melt-in-your-mouth amazing. The portion was huge, but Jeremy was so hungry he ate it all too quickly. Not as much conversation happened while they were eating, both being too preoccupied with enjoying their juicy meat to bother talking. When they were done they chatted until the server cleared their plates and returned with the bill. 

The bill was placed at Jeremy’s elbow along with a few wrapped mints. Jack smiled at him and reached for it saying, “I’ll get it this time dear.” She winked at him and Jeremy realized that the server must think they were on a date. He blushed red again and thanked her. 

The thing was, it  _ did _ feel like a date. Jeremy hadn’t had a one-on-one meal at a nice restaurant with a pretty woman in a long time. Or a pretty man for that matter, he wasn’t picky. It was nice to get to know someone like that again, even if it wasn’t a real date. He thought wistfully that he wouldn’t get a chance to date anyone for a long time still. 

They had time to kill before the hit that night, so Jack drove them to a gun range frequented by the crew. Michael and Gavin were there already. Gavin bounced up to him and asked if he was ready to show them what he could do. 

“I don’t know Gavin, I’m more of a hand-to-hand guy really.”

“Aww Jeremy! Lil J! Just give it a try!”

“Don’t call me Little J. And I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.” Jeremy snatched the pistol from the table and squared up to the window. He checked it over, going over his ACTS and PROVES in his head to make sure it was in working order. Then he loaded the gun and took aim. The targets in front of him were humanoid silhouettes. He fired in bursts, adjusting his aim as he got used to the gun. He lowered his gun and reeled the target towards him. His first couple shots had gone wide, but there were two clusters, one in the head and one in the chest, that would be lethal on a person. 

Behind him Jack whistled. “And you say you’re  _ better _ at hand-to-hand than shooting?”

Jeremy shrugged, trying to look cool and nonchalant while bragging about his skills. “Yeah. I was the best fighter in one of the underground rings in Boston. You could say I’m pretty good at it.”

Michael stepped forwards, a wicked glint in his eye. “Oh yeah?” he asked, “I wanna see that.”

Jeremy gave him a once over. He was taller than Jeremy, but not by much, and Jeremy had a few pounds on him. He didn’t doubt that Michael was packed with lean muscle, and he would never make the mistake of thinking someone was weak just from how they looked, but having the weight advantage was always something Jeremy knew how to use for his advantage. 

Jack stepped in before he could say anything. “Oh no you don’t, Michael. I want everyone in fighting shape tonight.”

Michael pounted, full on pouted like a child. “Fuckin’ spoil sport Jack over here! Jeremy, you’ve gotta promise me a round in the ring when the job’s done.”

“Yeah sure, only if you promise you’ll buy me a round after I kick your ass.”

Michael cackled with laughter and slapped him on the back. “I like your attitude, dude.”

The rest of the afternoon passed in a relaxed way. The four of them hung out and practiced their shooting. At some point it turned into them showing off the trick shots they knew. Jeremy definitely felt like he was holding his own. He was the odd man out, and he did know the other three as well, but he never felt like he was an outsider. Just like with the video games a few days before, he found himself having fun. 

Soon the gang had to start gearing up. Jeremy and Jack were going together, Michael took Gavin in his own car, and they were meeting Geoff and Ryan once they arrived. Jeremy and Jack waited in an alley for what felt like a long time before they got the go ahead to move around to the back of the warehouse. Jeremy had been told that the Head Hunters were meeting with some arms dealers and they were waiting for the third party to be completely gone from the building before the raid began. They waited by a backdoor to make sure no one slipped out before the Fakes could go in. 

They got the word to start infiltrating the warehouse. They got a ways in before they started to hear gunfire from the front. Jack and Jeremy exchanged a grim look and pressed ahead, still without seeing anyone. Jack knew where she needed to go and Jeremy followed her. Once when they rounded a corner they heard footsteps running towards them. Bracing themselves around the door they waited. As the runner passed them Jack stuck her foot out and the man fell with a cry. Jeremy was on him in a second, pinning him to the floor and covering his mouth. Jack knelt to take a look. 

“How old are you, kid?” she asked.

The man stuttered “S-seventeen, ma’am.”

“After tonight the Head Hunters are going to be gone, understand?”

The man nodded. 

“There won’t be anyone left to remember how brave you were for sticking your neck out. No one to get mad if you just disappear into the night. But there will be a whole group of us who will know what happened if any cops or other help shows up. And we know how to look people up if we want to find them. Catch my drift?”

The man nodded, eyes wide.

“Get the fuck out of here, kid.”

Jeremy eased off him and the boy took off down the hallway, not looking back. 

“You trust him not to do anything stupid?” asked Jeremy.

“I have to hope so. If not we can deal with it.”

They had a few more doors before coming to a large space. Jeremy saw the rest of the crew around the doors, pointing their guns at a pile of tables and couches in the centre of the room, a hastily built cover for the gang. A few bleeding bodies were on the floor but the situation seemed to be under control since the shooting had stopped. 

Jack nudged Jeremy’s elbow. This was his moment.

“JJ! Hey, JJ! You owe me my money, man.” His words were met with silence. “C’mon man, are you here? I finished that hit you asked for. Took out Abrams like you said. Some guy came after us, shot the sniper so I ran. You never answered your phone to talk about payment dude.”

Angry whispers were heard from behind the furniture. “Huh. Is he not here? Lemme give him a call.” He pulled out his burner and dialed the number Gavin had given him. It was the one he’d been called from to arrange the hit originally. There was a tense silence until the opening notes of a rap song was heard before muffled cursing was heard and it abruptly stopped. 

“JJ. Get your ass out here!”

The angry whispers got louder, but nothing happened. Geoff fired into the furniture. “JJ comes out or we start throwing grenades!” he yelled.

The man who had contacted Jeremy stumbled out from cover as if he’d been pushed. He raised his hands. When he saw the figure beside Geoff he paled, stepped back and stammered. “The Vagabond!”

“Don’t worry, man,” said Geoff, “We’re just here for Jeremy’s money. You hired him for a job, he did the job, you pay him. Just play nice and we go away. No harm done.”

“I didn’t! I’ve never seen him before!” 

“JJ, man. Don’t be like that! We all know that isn’t true. Last Saturday, 11 pm by the docks? You and Jeremy met up. Do you need me to remind you?” When Geoff was met with silence he continued. “Gavin, will you do the honours?”

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, or a dozen phones going off simultaneously. “Whoops,” Gavin said. “I think I sent the picture to everyone!”

Jeremy watched the sweat beading on JJ’s forehead as the man checked his phone. He knew what the gang would see: a picture of JJ and Jeremy meeting by the shipping containers not five blocks away from the warehouse they were in now.

“So.” Geoff continued, “The money. How much was Abrams’ life worth to you again? Two grand wasn’t it? I happen to know you offered thirty to bump me off, but who am I to tell you how to price these things. Hardly anything to quibble over, right JJ? Now, go get the man his money.”

Under the watchful gaze of the crew and their guns, JJ jerked across the room to a safe disguised as a filing cabinet. He grabbed fistfuls of money and shoved them into a bag. He threw the loaded sack towards Jeremy and turned to glare at Geoff and Ryan. “There? Happy?”

“Absolutely. Nice doing business with you.” With a salute Geoff backed out of the room. Ryan melted into the shadows behind him and Jack started tugging Jeremy backwards from where he had picked up the bag. They didn’t go far before the sound of angry shouting followed by gunshots was heard. The silence on the coms told them it was in-fighting with the Head Hunters and not a retaliation. Jack and Jeremy left the warehouse but took up a post where they could watch people coming out of the building Jack had binoculars and Jeremy was on a sniper rifle. Jack would be identifying the members who would cause problems if they escaped and regrouped. The lower level lackies who made it out were free to get on with the rest of their lives. 

They only had three come out the back door that needed to be put down. Jeremy was proud of himself that all three were clean headshots, even with moving targets. Jack was impressed too. “Where’d ya learn to shoot like that in Boston?”

“Uh, do video games count?” Jack laughed. “Seriously though, I had cousins who liked to hunt. We’d to go up to Maine a lot to camp and shoot stuff. People are more predictable than deer.”

Jack laughed again, and Jeremy decided he could get used to the sound. He had never encountered something he would ever describe as  _ mirth _ before, but Jack’s laugh was full of it. It was a deep belly laugh that made you want to hear it over and over again. 

After a long time of quiet from the base Geoff ordered everyone home. Apparently the dirty cops he bribed to ignore any activity in the area were ending their shifts, so they had to make sure they were clear of the area.

Jack dropped Jeremy off at Matt’s with a promise to pick him up for a celebration the next night. Well, Jeremy supposed it was early enough in the morning for it to be considered that night. He was about to walk away from the car when Jack called out that he had forgotten his bag. Jeremy just looked at her, confused.

She leaned over to open the passenger door again and handed out the bag JJ gave him. 

“Oh thanks. What’s my cut?”

“Jeremy. This is your cut. We didn’t do this job for the money and you would’ve earned this if we hadn’t kidnapped you. And well… if JJ hadn’t been planning to kill you.”

He stared at her blankly until she sighed, tossed the bag at him and closed the door. “See you tonight Jeremy!” she called as she drove away.

Jeremy just shook his head, picked up the bag from where he had fumbled it to the ground and walked up to Matt’s guest bedroom. It was already close to the time Matt would be waking up so Jeremy decided to wait a bit and shower before sleeping. He rifled through the bag and saw that JJ had actually put three thousand dollars in it. He’d never had this much cash before. It definitely opened up possibilities for him. Los Santos sure was a fast paced place to live, he had to decide if he wanted to stay or move on to a new place. With that raid on the Head Hunters’ base he now didn’t have to worry about them coming after him, but there was still the mob. So far there was no sign that anyone was hunting him down, or close to finding him at least, so he didn’t need to move on right away if he didn’t want to.

He had to admit to himself that the Fakes were one reason he was leaning towards staying in the city. They were fun. He enjoyed spending time with Michael and Gavin, and Jack had been an absolute delight so far. Matt was super generous to let him stay, and he was having a great time living with and getting to know his host. Jeremy was hoping that if he stayed in the city he may have a chance to work with them again. They clearly had a sense of morals and loyalty that the mob lacked, and it would be a welcome change. 

He heard Matt’s alarm go off and knew the man would hit snooze a few more times before getting up, so he snagged the shower while he could. When he was finished he passed Matt in the hall who yawned and said he was surprised Jeremy was up after his late night. Jeremy told him how it went and then fell into his bed to pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to get some feedback on this. Do you guys like it? Is it as painfully generic as I think it is? Comments and criticisms are so welcome!


	4. Fights and Bars

Jeremy woke up in the late afternoon to his phone ringing. He picked it up and it was Michael on the other line. 

“Hey man, wakey wakey.”

Jeremy groaned at the cheerful voice. “Can I help you with something?”

“You sure can! Do you wanna have that spar today? I can pick you up in an hour and drive you to the gym. We can go from there to the bar where you can buy me that round you’ll owe me when I wipe the floor with your ass.”

Jeremy laughed. “Sure thing man. See you in an hour.”

Before he knew it he was wrapping his knuckles with sports tape. He was in a warehouse that the crew used for working out or hanging out. There were a few members milling around. Jeremy didn’t recognize a lot of them, but one of the men who had come to ‘lock up’ Jack while Jeremy was a hostage was running on a treadmill. 

Jeremy stepped up to the edge of the mats that were arranged in one corner. Michael had done the same. They shook hands and then the match began. 

Michael was clearly the better fighter between the two. Jeremy was surprised by his speed and technique. He had to adjust his style to hold his own against his opponent, focusing on defense and avoidance rather than offence. He would have lost pretty quickly, but it seemed like Michael was out of shape. Hits that should have landed glanced off, kicks that should have knocked Jeremy off his feet merely made him stumble. He’d hate to come up against Michael in a real fight when the man had been training for a while. However, the gang member’s endurance soon flagged and Jeremy gained the upper hand. It seemed like Michael was better at short, fierce bursts than sustained fighting. If he couldn’t knock out his opponent in the first few minutes he wasn’t able to sustain his energy. 

Eventually Michael slipped up and stumbled after Jeremy dodged another kick. He was able to spin and use Michael’s momentum to throw him to the ground. The two wrestled for a while, each trying to gain the advantage, but this is where Jeremy’s small size and higher weight really served him well. He was able to pin Michael after a few minutes of struggling. Michael thrashed for a few moments more before giving up and tapping out. 

Jeremy rolled off him, taking a minute to catch his breath on the mat before getting to his feet and helping Michael up. Michael took his hand and, between a spew of profanity, congratulated Jeremy on his win. 

“Fuck, I need to do that more often. Fucking should have had you, you slippery son of a bitch.”

“You shoulda, pal. That was just sloppy.” The two grinned at each other before turning to pick up their stuff and head to the showers. Jeremy hadn’t realized a crowd had gathered to watch. Gavin bounded over to Michael to hang off his arm and coo at him, making sure his ‘boy’ wasn’t too injured. 

“Nah, Gavvy. I’m fine. I’d love to see the two of you fighting. He’d be able to grind you to a pulp.”

Gavin looked over at Jeremy and poked his bicep. “He is delightfully muscley.” he said with a cheeky grin. 

Jeremy just blushed and turned away as Michael twisted Gavin into a headlock and started messing up his hair. The two of them were clearly very close. Jeremy wondered how close. 

Movement caught his eye above his head and he realized there was a second floor with smaller rooms on one side of the building. There was walkway to access it that looked over the main room. Geoff was leaning on the railing watching the trio on the mats. Jeremy ducked his head and snuck off to the shower. 

He’d brought a change of clothes with him for the bar tonight because he wasn’t sure if anyone wanted to ferry him back to Matt’s house. He also didn’t want to wait around the Fake’s gym in his borrowed button down so as soon as he was changed he headed out to the parking lot to wait. 

Outside there was a brick wall around the parking lot. The sun was beating down on the pavement, causing the air above it to become warped with heat. Jeremy instantly regretted leaving the air conditioned gym. The building cast a shadow on the top of the wall, all Jeremy had to do was climb it. The relief was instant. He tucked himself in to his shady corner and let himself daydream. 

Not long afterwards Jeremy heard a door opening and voices float out. He turned to see the newcomers and recognized Jack’s laugh. It was quickly joined by a second. And man, if Jack’s laugh was like a sunrise, a glorious and bright thing that makes you feel warm because you get to be a part of it in the still dawn, this was like golden sunlight dancing on the sea. This laugh was the kind that made you smile and laugh too in spite of yourself, so free and unrestrained. 

Jack rounded the corner first, followed by Geoff. They were still laughing and Jeremy watched as Geoff looped an arm around Jack’s waist and kissed her cheek fondly. She returned the gesture by kissing Geoff properly before they broke apart and leaned on the hood of one of the cars. 

They were debating which bar to go two, Jack apparently with a preference for a smaller place that Geoff argued the Lads would get kicked out of. Speaking of the two youngest members, they came out of the gym next, followed by Ryan. This was the first time Jeremy had seen the man’s face without a mask or paint, and he couldn’t help but stare a little bit as he realized how handsome the other man was. 

He was too busy staring at the group, noticing that all of the Fakes happened to be attractive people, so he didn’t immediately hop down to join them. They must not have realized he was there, because they started talking about him, teasing Michael that he’d finally met his match. 

“He’s good, but I want a rematch. I’ll get him next time.”

“He is good. It’s nice to see someone who can keep up with you.” teased Ryan.

Jack chimed in. “Good with a gun too. You should have seen his shooting last night.”

“But where the fuck did he go?” asked Geoff. 

“I thought he came out here already.” said Gavin.

Jeremy realized that he had been waiting too long and it would be super awkward to jump down the wall after hearing the crew talking about him. He was excited that they seemed to be impressed with his skills. It gave him a sense of satisfaction that he wasn’t completely useless. 

Thankfully the other side of the wall wasn’t too far off the pavement, so Jeremy was able to jump off and walk around to the parking lot without anyone seeing him. The crew cheered when he came in sight and he got in a car with Jack and Michael to go to the club Geoff liked best. It was in the basement of a building and it had sleek and trendy decor. There was a white and chrome bar in the centre with a dance floor on one side and an array of booths and tables around the other three. The group made their way to the back where a short set of stairs led to a somewhat more private room. 

When they got seated Michael made good on his promise to buy Jeremy a drink. He bought a pitcher of some local beer for everyone at the table and Jeremy was surprised to see Geoff and Ryan sticking to soda, but he guessed it made sense for the gang to have some sober members if they were worried about any trouble finding them when they went out. 

The gang started chatting about how the mission the night before had ended. Soon however they were gossiping about people Jeremy could only assume were other members of the crew. Mostly catching up on projects and what they were up to, but a little bit of relationship drama slipped in too. Jeremy noticed that not once did anyone say anything catty about the other members of the group. He was used to that sort of language from the mob, but the Fakes seemed to genuinely care about each other. Sure, they may call their friends “That motherfucker” or “This bastard” but he could tell that they were pet names more than insults. 

Jeremy was crammed at the end of their booth, with Michael beside him and Jack across the table. Gavin was on Michael’s other side and the two of them were the loudest at the table. Jeremy could barely see Geoff and Ryan, and he certainly couldn’t hear them over the music unless they were yelling.

Jeremy quickly lost the thread of the conversation about people he didn’t know, and started to zone out, staring towards the dance floor over the railing that separated them from the rest of the bar. The music suddenly stopped and then returned louder than before. The opening strains to an upbeat pop song started playing and Jeremy realized that the club had a live house band. 

Jeremy listened to two more pop covers from the band before Gavin slammed his glass down and proclaimed, “I love this song!”

“We  _ know _ ,” gripped Michael, “This band literally plays the same set every night and you say that literally  _ every time _ .” 

“We have to dance Michael!” 

Michael sighed, Jeremy wondered if Gavin also said that every time. The two of them made to get up so Jeremy stood to let them out. Gavin slung his arms around both him and Michael and crooned “Lad dance party, yeah!” Jeremy was about to protest that he didn’t dance, but then he realized his other option was sitting in the booth with Geoff and Ryan, and even Jack’s presence in the booth wouldn’t make that enjoyable for Jeremy. The two of them still intimidated him after the whole kidnapping mix up. Geoff a little less so after working with him on the raid on the Head Hunter’s base. 

Ryan was a different matter altogether. He was a big dude, almost a foot taller than Jeremy, and broad. He had also done a quick Google search of the name JJ had called out upon seeing him, and man, was that a terrifying read. Ryan, or the Vagabond, as the newspapers called him, was supposed to be a ruthless, bloodthirsty psychopath. Jeremy didn’t know how much was true or how much was sensational ‘journalism’ but if any part of it were true, the man was terrifying. It didn’t help that they hadn’t spoken a single word to each other. 

So, he wasn’t too upset to be whisked away to the dance floor with the younger gang members. They all bobbed along to the crowd pleasing cover band, doing silly dance moves to make each other laugh. Gavin and Michael got extremely handsy with each other while dancing. A slow song came on before the end of the band’s first set and the two of them paired off. Jeremy didn’t have anyone to dance with so he went back to the table. Before climbing the stairs he looked back and saw the two of them dancing, but he wasn’t sure if they were also kissing. He shook his head and returned to his seat. 

Jack and Ryan were missing. He looked around for them and Geoff noticed, looking up from his phone. “They went to the bar.” Geoff said, noticing Jeremy looking for the other two. “Hey, I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but good job with JJ. You sounded good. Confident. In control.”

“Thanks. I didn’t feel like it so it’s nice to know I can act.” Jeremy answered. 

Geoff waved a hand at him. “It is a good skill. Speaking of, you’ve got some hand-to-hand skills as well.”

Jeremy blushed. “I should by now. I’ve been fighting for years back in Boston,” 

“It shows, kid. Hardly anyone is willing to spar with Michael. Ryan will sometimes, but that fucker prefers to sneak up behind you and pin you against the wall rather than fist fight. Michael gets all up in your face.”

“He’s good though. He shoulda had me beat. I got lucky.”

“Luck is important in a fight. And in life.” Geoff looked thoughtfully at Jeremy for a moment. “Hey, I was wonder-”

“Geoffrey!” Gavin cut off whatever Geoff was about to say by tumbling into the booth. “Michoo bought us all shots Geoff!” 

Sure enough Michael and a server with a tray of tiny glasses appeared at the booth. 

“What’s in these?” Geoff looked skeptical. 

“Tequila. And these ones has something lemon in it for you and Rye bread.” Michael took two of the glasses and set them closer to his boss. “Where’d those fuckers go anyway.”

“I thought they were at the bar.”

“Oh well. They can get their own drinks then. Bottom’s up boy!”

Michael and Gavin lifted their glasses and waited for Jeremy and Geoff to do the same. They all clicked glasses, tapped them on the table and knocked back their shots. The tequila burned Jeremy’s throat and he remembered the rhyme “Beer before liquor” and vowed to quit while he was still ahead. This was not the best time to be getting drunk off his ass. 

Jack and Ryan soon returned, with even more drinks. Jeremy refused his and passed it on to Gavin, who was getting quite giddy at this point. The group was louder now, and Jeremy found himself zoning out and playing with a coaster. He felt a nudge at his elbow and looked over to see Geoff giving him a sympathetic smile. 

“This place has a great patio. Wanna go check it out? It’s always quieter there.”

“Sure.” Jack and Ryan stood to let the two of them out. They hardly seemed to notice as Ryan was in some kind of argument with Gavin that had Jack red in the face, eyes screwed shut with laughter. Geoff guided him to the patio. It was much quieter. A few people were lingering and the smell of weed and cigarettes was heavy in the air.

Jeremy sprawled into one of the patio chairs, relieved to be out of the loud club. Geoff sat beside him. They sat in silence for a few minutes until Geoff asked, “What are your plans now?”

Jeremy wrinkled his nose. Honestly, he had no idea. “I was thinking of sticking around for a bit until I need to move onto somewhere else. Maybe I’ll be able to wait out the bounty. Jack said she knows people who will pay me to fight.”

“Well if you’re looking for a job, I have something I need help with. A break in.”

Jeremy’s heart raced at the thought of getting to spend more time with the crew. They intrigued him to no end and he wanted to get to know them better. He had this odd need to want them to like him, to show off what he could do. This was just another chance to do that. But he didn’t want to seem too eager so he downplayed his excitement. He shrugged and asked. “What were you thinking?”

“I’ll tell you more about it in the morning. Basically you look like someone who works in the building we’re hitting and it would be nice if you could use his ID to sneak in. 

“Yeah, tell me the details and I’ll see if I’m interested.” 

Geoff cracked a big grin and clapped him on the shoulder. The two of them didn’t stay out for too much longer. Geoff got a text saying Michael had started threatening people and then threw up. 

Geoff drove Michael and Gavin home and Jeremy left with Jack and Ryan. In the car the two older crew members started talking about the Game of Thrones theories. Jeremy eagerly joined in on the conversation. It was something he had strong opinions about. He was passionately bashing one of the more glaring plot holes which had Jack in stitches. The sound of her laughter still made little bubbles of happiness float around in Jeremy’s chest. It was such a pure sound. He even got a chuckle out of the Vagabond, which made Jeremy pretty happy. 

He was dropped off first and he waved goodbye to the crew before sneaking back into Matt’s house. Jeremy hoped he wasn’t outstaying his welcome and decided to look into finding a new place the next day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'm looking for comments and criticisms!


	5. An Offer

Matt drove Jeremy to the Fake’s headquarters. Jeremy brought up the topic of finding a place for himself. “Matt, do you know which areas in Los Santos have good apartments to rent?”

Matt glanced at him as he checked his blind spot to change lanes. “I mean, I know a few. What end of the sketchy scale are you looking for?”

“Like, above getting stabbed in my sleep but still cheap.”

Matt wrinkled his nose at that. “Isn’t Geoff talking to you about a job today? Why don’t you wait for the payout from that and get somewhere nicer?”

“I thought you’d want me out of your hair.” Jeremy said, fiddling with his seatbelt. 

“Nah, man, you’re welcome to stay. You’re a better house guest than the rest of those idiots when they need a place to lay low. Don’t move out on my account.” He thought for a minute. “You could always get yourself a car, that way you’d have more freedom to move around and take jobs while you save up for something.”

“Is that- Are you sure?” Jeremy was surprised. He wasn’t expecting Matt to let him continue crashing at his place for so long.

“Yeah, I really don’t mind, dude. Stick around for a while.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Matt pulled into the underground garage and the two of them went up to the office space. Matt wandered off looking for someone named Trevor and left Jeremy to find his way to Geoff’s office.

It was the same room they had used to talk about the Head Hunter job. Geoff clapped and rubbed his hands together when he saw Jeremy enter.

“Come in! Have seat! How are you feeling after last night?”

“Uh, pretty good. Thanks.”

“You’re looking a lot better than Gavin and Michael. Those two won’t be showing up for another few hours.”

“Yeah, uh. Looked like they went pretty hard last night.”

“They have a bad habit of doing that. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try teaching you their bad habits if you decide to stick around.”

Stick around? Did Geoff just mean for this job or could be be thinking of keeping Jeremy around for longer? He wasn’t totally opposed to the idea of working for the fakes, so Jeremy hoped it was the latter. 

He decided to cut to the chase. “So, you said you had a job for me?”

“That I do!” Geoff said, stroking a tattooed hand over his beard. “An opportunity fell into our laps and it would be a damn shame to waste it. See, the Department of Defense has a huge storage facility just outside of downtown and they are converting it all into offices. The storage is going to be moving to a brand-spanking new, state of the art facility in the desert beside the military base.”

Geoff paused to point out the old and new buildings on the map on the wall before continuing. “They contracted a moving company to get all of their boxes of archives to the new building. A… buddy… of mine, guy who owes me a favour, works for that company and has been telling me about how the move is going. They’ve already moved half the staff and a bunch of trades are in there rippin’ wires out of the ceiling and all that crap already. Long story short, the security has turned into a joke at best, and there are a lot of unfamiliar faces in the halls, lots of stuff going in and out of the loading docks with no one paying it too much mind. One thing they do still have are all the electronic card readers at the doors. You tap your card and a picture of your face turns up on the security guard’s desk. Which brings me to why I’m telling you all this.”

Geoff paused again to steeple his fingers and look Jeremy up and down. “That buddy of mine has an uncanny resemblance to you. Taller, I’ll admit, but that isn’t in the photo. I can get the guy to accidentally drop his pass on his way home one day and Gavin can make a copy of it overnight. The pass will show up in his mailbox like nothing ever happened. Then you have free reign to go in and out as you please. It might be better to show up close to the end of the day and wait for night. Government people notoriously only work nine to five, so you should be clear to sneak around with no one watching. Gavin has a bunch of gadgets you can use to get around without getting caught.” Here Geoff leaned back and smiled widely at Jeremy, obviously waiting to hear his opinion of this wonderful plan. 

“Okay. So… What am I looking for once I’m in?”

Geoff’s smile slipped a little but he recovered. “Military secrets mostly. Floor plans, blueprints et cetera. Anything we can either use ourselves (I have a strong reason to believe the plans to Fort Knox are in there) or sell to others or even use as blackmail. We won’t really know until we dig through the record boxes. Whaddaya say? Are you in?”

Jeremy thought it over for a minute, staring at the map absently. It was a big risk, breaking into a government facility to steal military records, and it would have big consequences if he gets caught. He would be putting a lot of trust in Gavin’s ‘devices’ and Geoff’s ‘buddy.’ 

“What happens if I get caught?” he asked, 

When Geoff shrugged Jeremy was sure his answer would be  _ don’t get caught and you won’t have to find out _ , a phrase he could still hear in his last boss’s voice. But Geoff surprised him. “The security there is pretty slack. One or two guards at each entrance. They walk a few rounds, but not even the guards have access to the archives room. Once you’re in you’d be safe. You’ll be in touch with Gavin and the rest of the crew through a comm, so if anything happens we’ll know right away. Even if they do catch you, they couldn’t keep you there. It is a warehouse with some offices sprinkled around. The crew would have plenty of time to bust you out before any real authorities got there.”

Jeremy still didn’t answer and he realized he was chewing his lip. 

“Tell you what,” said Geoff. “You can do a trial run. Drop off the gear in the day time and you can explore the building a bit. If you decide you don’t want to risk going back then at least it will be easier for us to break and enter later.” This was an appealing option. And the next thing out of Geoff’s mouth sweetened the deal. “You’ll get 20 grand for this job too, if that helps anything.”

Jeremy’s jaw dropped at the number. Twenty, like two zero grand? That was an insane amount and would set him up nicely for a long time. 

“Okay. I guess I’ll give it a shot.”

Geoff’s smile turned wolfish. “Alright, let’s get down to planning!”

They did not immediately get down to planning. Geoff was going to wait for the full crew to arrive before briefing everyone together. Jeremy was sent off to study the facility’s blueprints given to Geoff by his buddy. The rest of the crew was apparently familiar enough with them from the initial planning stages. He tucked himself up in the break room, not willing to take Geoff’s advice about finding an empty office and making himself at home, what if the owner came back and found him there?

He was doing his best to memorize the building’s layout when Michael and Gavin arrived. They seemed to be arguing about something. Michael was yelling at Gavin, in a voice clearly meant to imitate his british accent.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t be such a  _ mingy little piss pot _ if someone hadn’t used all the fucking hot water this morning. Oh, hey Jeremy.” The two of them stopped arguing as soon as they caught sight of Jeremy on the couch. He was surprised by their argument, they sounded like an old married couple. They had clearly gone home together last night, Jeremy wondered if it was just easier for Geoff to drop them off at one place or if the two had  _ gone home together _ . Regardless, it was really nice for Jeremy to be in a place where the team members could be so openly affectionate with no worries about being seen as weak. Maybe if he did this job well Geoff will let him stick around. That option was looking more and more attractive.

Gavin jumped over the back of the couch at the sight of him and flopped beside him. “Whatcha working on lil J?”

“Gavin, I told you not to call me little Jay. I’m looking at some floor plans for a job Geoff wants my help with.”

“Oh!” cried Gavin, “So you are going to help with the Defense job!  Excellent! We’re about to have the briefing in a minute. After I can show you the tech we’ve been working on!”

The three of them chatted for a bit until Geoff stuck his head out the door and shouted for everyone to “get their asses in the boardroom”

Ryan had shown up while Jeremy was talking to the younger members of the team. He was half way between his intimidating and casual looks, wearing a leather jacket, large black boots, and a belt which had a range of weapons on it. But his face wasn’t painted or masked and his hair was loose around his shoulders, giving him a soft look. Jeremy was considerably less nervous around him after spending time at the bar last night. He even managed a smile and a good morning, which the other man politely returned. 

Geoff started by briefly describing the goal of the heist and the details he has gone over with Jeremy earlier that morning. He started to break down everyone’s individual roles which made Jeremy feel a lot safer about the job. He was going to have a lot of back up ready to swoop in if he ran into trouble and there were well thought out back up plans in place. 

When Geoff was finished and answered all of the questions from the crew, Jeremy found himself following Gavin into his office. The room was large, but it didn’t have any windows. Instead all four walls were covered in shelves with all kinds of computer stuff neatly arranged There was large desk with an array of computer monitors on top of it. Jeremy sat at the desk and Gavin brought over one of the gadgets. He pointed out the different components and explained what they were and what they did. 

Jeremy was amazed. He was used to Gavin being loud and energetic from the video games and the bar. Even just now during the briefing Gavin had interrupted Geoff with jokes and silly comments. But here in his office he became a different person. He was calm, focused, and really intelligent. He brought over one piece after another and patiently explained how it worked and walked Jeremy through operating it and troubleshooting it for common problems. He started at the most basic level, not assuming that anything was so obvious that it didn’t need explaining, but he never once sounded patronizing. Jeremy really appreciated it, because he had no experience with fancy equipment like this and didn’t want to feel stupid. 

They spend a long time in Gavin’s office, but eventually they needed to break for lunch. Gavin led him to the kitchen and as soon as he spotted Ryan making a sandwich he sprinted forwards and hopped on his teammate’s back, wrapping his legs around the taller man so that it looked like he was getting a piggyback ride. The two started bickering as Jeremy watched in awe. The news reports said the Vagabond was a terrifying killer, yet this man was playfully joking with Gavin while making a sandwich and completely ignoring the fact that the man was  _ still perched on his back _ . 

The next surprising thing is that Ryan had made not just one sandwich, but he also gave one to Gavin and Jeremy. The three of them sat down at the kitchen table and ate what was easily the best sandwich Jeremy ever had. It had nice soft fresh bread and a variety of veggies and a heap of meat. When everyone was done eating Jeremy stood to wash the dishes, not wanting to seem like a freeloader. As he placed the last plate in the drying rack he turned to see Gavin staring at him with a wide grin. 

“Lil J! Wanna play some video games? Ryan was just saying a new car came out in GTA that sounds super fun. We need a fourth to play the heist to be able to buy it.”

Jeremy sighed. He wasn’t going to get Gavin to stop calling him that nickname. “Don’t you guys have enough heists in real life? Why do you need to do them in video games?”

“Because  _ Jeremy _ , in real life you can’t win a flying car at the end you smeg.”

“Also,” Ryan added, “Where do you think we get all our brilliant ideas for our own heists?” 

Jeremy laughed, “Seriously? The people who think video games make kids violent would have a field day with you.”

Ryan chuckled at that. It was rich and warm. Jeremy felt his face heating up at how nice it was, especially because the handsome man had laughed at something  _ he _ said. Jeremy tried to hide his blush while following Gavin and Ryan to the break room. Michael was already there getting set up.

They played for hours. It was fun. Just like with Mario Kart, Jeremy had a wonderful time. He slowly started opening up and joining in the conversation. Ryan had to tell them all what to do because he had actually googled it and Michael and Gavin kept talking over the instructions and missing them. Jeremy hadn’t heard Ryan talking so much. At the bar it had been a bit loud for much conversation, and he hadn’t really had a chance before then. He had a beautiful deep voice and a delightful chuckle that Jeremy got to hear whenever Gavin was being particularly silly.

Too soon Matt came to find him to ask if he was ready to go home. The four of them had just finished the last set up they needed to do before the heist, so the four of them decided to pause it and continue another time. Jeremy loved that he was being included in their plans. He wanted to spend more time playing video games with these guys, he had a friend back home that he could game with, and he missed her. It was nice to be able to just relax and game with friends again. Or maybe not friends yet, he didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but he hoped they might become friends some day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are playing GTA in the GTA AU
> 
>  
> 
> Meta


	6. Snooping

Jeremy took a deep breath as the steel gates rolled open to let him into the loading dock. He was driving a large box truck with the logo for a well known moving company on the side. He was decked out in a safety fest and work boots. He drove the truck to his designated bay and did his best to back it up properly. An holy metallic scraping noise told him the quick lesson in a parking lot hadn’t quite gotten him up to par. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin as a hand patted his leg. Gavin was curled up behind the driver’s seat, a hefty laptop and a blanket hiding him from sight. All Jeremy had to do was get in, drop off their equipment, and get out. If he could plant the false front on one of the card scanners while he was there, that was just a bonus. Gavin would be in touch with him telling him what to do while hacking into the cameras. Apparently the Fakes had tapped into the feed on an earlier excursion. 

Finally lined up with the electric lift, Jeremy hopped out of the truck and used the stolen pass to enter the building. There was a bored looking security guard behind glass at a desk. Jeremy beamed at him.

“Good morning. I’m dropping off some bins. I was told I could leave them at the dock?”

The guard nodded and pointed to a garage door Jeremy pressed the button to open it then his own truck doors. There was an electric ramp to make it easier to wheel the deliveries into the building and Jeremy had a moment of panic hoping no one was looking as he figured out how to use it. He was stalling a bit, Gavin was doing something to loop the security cameras so Jeremy could get the skin on the card reader unseen, and needed time to get the right footage.

Jeremy started wheeling stacks of plastic bins into the storage area of the loading dock. Only the top and bottom few bins were real, the rest had their bottoms cut out to make a hidden cavity. It was filled with the gear Gavin could use to get around the security and copy the documents they were looking for. 

A buzz in his ear was all the warning he got before Gavin came over the comm. “I’ve got the footage. Whenever you’re ready you can go in.”

He finished unloading before started on phase two of the plan. He walked up to the guard and asked, “Hey, I know I’m not supposed to leave the truck unattended, but is it alright if I go to the bathroom?”

The guard nodded, not tearing his eyes away from the youtube video he didn’t even pretend not to be watching. Jeremy scanned his pass and walked into the government building. There was a bathroom down the hall from the loading dock. Jeremy walked in and waited for Gavin.

After a moment the ear piece buzzed, “Okay, you should be clear. I’ve only got you for ten minutes, assuming the guard isn’t timing your bathroom break.”

“I’ll just tell ‘em I ate bad sushi.” He heard Gavin chuckle as he got to work.

He was going to use the freight elevator, because for some reason people could access the upper floors through there even though you needed a pass to use the stairs or passenger elevator. A nice little loophole. From there it was just down the hall and to he left. Thankfully no one was around, it was late in the day and most people had gone home already. Jeremy was able to press the skin over the box.In theory it would send the information needed to unlock the door to the archives to Gavin without anyone noticing the added piece. He was in, out, and down the elevator in only a few minutes. He alerted Gavin when he was back in the bathroom and the techie returned the cameras to their live feed.

As Jeremy walked out he waved to the guard and wished him a nice day. Pulling the truck out was much easier than driving it in, and a few blocks down the road Gavin slid into the passenger seat.

“You did it Jeremy! That was top! How do you feel?”

Jeremy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and laughed. “Honestly? That was way easier than it should have been. That should not have worked!”

“Nah, it’s a mix of carelessness from them and skill from us. You definitely have the attitude for this kind of work. You have the right amount of confidence, cheerfulness, and boredom to sell it.”

Jeremy laughed and blushed. “I try my best!”

“So do you think you’ll go in for the real one?”

“Yeah. This was good. You’re right, it is really easy to get around with no one questioning you. 

Gavin cheered. “You’re gonna do great Lil’ J!”

Jeremy hardly noticed the nickname anymore and let himself get excited with Gavin. 

They were lucky and didn’t have to wait long to get the pass they needed to break into the archives room. Jeremy was back in the building two days after his first visit. The team was worried that there would be some ‘unauthorized borrowing’ of their bins with all the work that was happening in the building and the last thing they needed was someone looking too close. 

Getting in was easy. He moved the bins to the second floor and then hid in  a broom closet. Then he simply needed to use his second pass to get in the archives room and unpack the tech. He used a headlamp instead of the over head lights. There were hundreds of boxes lining the shelves. The only information on them was a number. He had no idea if there was a list explaining what was in each box, but he doubted he could access that list if there was.

He quickly realized the boxes were colour coded in groups. The ones closest to the door seemed to all hold meeting minutes. He was narrating his findings to Gavin and they decided not to bother with those. The next section contained cost reports, which may have some info that would shock taxpayers, but was hardly blackmail material. 

Eventually Jeremy found a section that Geoff was interested in. He set up the remote scanner Gavin gave him and started copying the files as he looked for anything else of interest.

It took him four nights to copy all the info the Fake’s needed. A good find was a map drawer in the back with the blueprints for a bunch of secure buildings around the country. 

Overall it was a boring job. The only excitement came on the second last morning just after he’d exited the room. He heard voices coming from around the corner and had to run into an office before they could see him. Luckily it was one of the offices that had already moved to the new building so all that was left was a desk. Jeremy was able to hide behind it as the workers walked down the hall. His luck got even better when he realized the topic of conversation was quite interesting. The woman was telling the man all about the new armoured vehicles that were going to be delivered the next week. They even stopped at a water fountain to fill a bottle so Jeremy could hear all the details about what the cars were like an their expected delivery day. Once they passed and continued on their way Jeremy was able to exit as normal.

Geoff was ecstatic about the vehicle delivery and started a team working on finding more about it as soon as he could. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

When he debriefed with Geoff after he was finished getting the information the leader asked if he was interested in helping sift through the info. The Fakes wanted to focus on getting the heist ready over the next few days and no one had the time to go through the piles of files Jeremy had found.

Jeremy was happy to get to continue working for the crew. They were fun to work with and his hope that he would be brought on full time was coming closer to being realized. 

He was set up in a room like a school computer room, with everyone having their own stations. There were five other people working there besides Gavin. When they were doing big projects they found it helpful to be together instead of hiding away in their own offices. It was easy to bounce ideas off each other or ask for advice. It also helped them to remember to take breaks. Matt had a space, but he preferred to work at home on days he was on-call. Jeremy soon found he was making friends with Steffy, Sarah, Andy, Larry, and Neil, the IT specialists in the crew. They each had their own background and specialty, but they were all extremely talented with technology. 

The files were pretty boring, Jeremy only skimmed most of them, flagging the ones that deserved a second look. It was easy to get distracted by the heist prep going on around him. He started offering suggestions when the team got stuck. He felt like he really fit in with their dynamic. They were easy to talk to and joke with. They even seemed to think his suggestions were helpful.

Still, it came as a surprise when Geoff asked him to participate in in the briefing meeting. 

The vehicles were being delivered out of state, and Geoff wanted to snag them while they were still on the road. They had a very narrow window of time where the trucks were going through the mountains and the crew planned to ambush them there for and easy escape. They decided to only take three cars, too many would spread their resources thin and have two people assigned to each car. They’d be spending a two nights in an air bnb to prep closer to the ambush 

Jeremy was surprised that he was being asked to team up with Ryan. He’d thought that they would have lots of people who they would pick for such a big role but Geoff explained that their support crew was less combat heavy, focusing on fraud and espionage. 

“I thought you were part of a network. Wouldn’t you rather get one of them to help?” he asked. Everyone in the crew was staring at him. He didn’t want to give away an opportunity to to work for the crew, but he didn’t understand why he was getting one. 

Geoff just shrugged. “Maybe. I think you’d do well though. Wanna give it a try?”

Hell. Yes. “Uh, yeah, if you’re sure.”

Geoff clapped then rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. Get ready, we’re leaving tomorrow.”

Jeremy left the meeting wondering, if he did this job well, would they ask him to stay on in the crew?


	7. Cabins and Cars

The airbnb was surprisingly nice. They were in a mountainous region so there was a lovely view of picturesque rocky slopes. It was clear that the place functioned as a ski cabin in the winter, but it was off season currently. There were four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Jeremy was given his own room because he didn’t know the others very well. Geoff got the other single room because he ‘needed to focus on the plan and that left Michael to share with Gavin and Ryan with Jack. 

They arrived quite late at night, so the first thing they did was crash after the long drive. Jeremy hadn’t even closed his blinds before passing out. Unfortunately that meant he woke up with a face full of sunlight much too early the next morning. He didn’t know what time the crew was planning on being up, but he figured he might as well grab a coffee. 

He stumbled down the stairs, blinking at the early morning sun. It was way too early to be this bright, but that is what happens when you cross time zones. There was a door at the end of the hall on the first floor that he guessed was the kitchen, so he pushed it open and froze at the unexpected sight in front of him.

Michael was sitting on the counter with Ryan on his knees on the floor in front of him. Michael’s hands were buried in Ryan’s long soft hair and his face was slack with pleasure. Jeremy stood there blinking at the sight, his sleep filled brain not comprehending. Until the door clicked shut behind him, making Michael catch his eye. The seated man smirked, twitched Ryan’s head closer, and moaned, all while keeping unbroken eye contact with Jeremy.

Jeremy felt his face flush as he turned on his heel and left the kitchen. He made it a few steps down the hall before he paused to let the scene sink in. Ryan was giving Michael a blowjob in the kitchen. That was completely unexpected. And, if the sudden tightness in his pants was any indication, it was unexpectedly hot too. Planning today was going to be awkward for sure. 

Footsteps on the stairs broke his reverie as Geoff came down. He was making his way towards the kitchen and Jeremy panicked. Just as Geoff was about to pass him Jeremy flung his arm out to stop him. 

“Wait! Uh… You can’t go in there! It’s… uh… occupied?”

Geoff gave him a sleepy-eyed, cold stare. “Jeremy. If there is one thing you need to know about this crew, it is that nothing comes between me and coffee. Move.”

Jeremy lowered his arm and watched in horror as Geoff disappeared behind the door of the kitchen. The next thing he heard was a screech.

“How many times have I told you not to have sex in the fucking kitchen?!”

He stayed long enough to hear Michael answer, “Well why is it a  _ fucking _ kitchen if we can’t  _ fuck _ in it?” 

And nope. Jeremy was out. He practically sprinted back to his room. He was much more awake than he had been when he left. And he didn’t have a drop of coffee. 

So. Never mind Geoff needing coffee, apparently the one thing he needed to know about the crew was that Michael and Ryan had had sex in the kitchen on multiple occasions. That was fine. That was normal. 

He adjusted himself in his pants and decided that was a track his mind didn’t need to go down right this minute. He grabbed his toothbrush bag and headed into the bathroom for a nice, cold shower. During which he was not going to think about Michael smirking. Michael moaning as he pulled Ryan farther onto his dick. Ryan taking it so beautifully…

Nope, not thinking about any of that. Definitely not debating which position would be nicer. To have Ryan’s lips wrapped around him or to sink down on Michael’s cock, the man’s fingers in his hair… 

Jeremy shuddered as he got out of the shower. Today was going to be fun. He didn’t know how he would look either of them in the eye after this. 

He wrapped a towel around his waist and mentally berated himself for being too distracted to bring a change of clothes into the bathroom with him. He hoped he could sneak into his room with just a towel with no one seeing him. 

He opened the door to check if anyone was in the hallway and gave a very dignified, manly shriek when he came face to face with Ryan. He jumped back from the door, letting the other man step into the small room.

“Uh, good morning.” Ryan rasped. God, his voice was  _ ruined _ . “Geoff wanted us to apologize.”

“Oh! No worries! I, uh, should have knocked.” Jeremy was acutely aware that he was still in just a towel. 

“No, we should have remembered we have someone else in the house. We got carried away. That was very unprofessional.”

“It’s really okay. I was surprised more than anything. Especially ‘cause I thought Michael was-” Jeremy snapped his mouth shut and turned bright red. 

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Was what? Straight?”

“Uh… No. I guess I thought he was with Gavin.” The two of them were inseparable, Jeremy thought they were together the way they argued like an old married couple. 

Ryan laughed, thankfully. “Oh, he is.”

“What?”

“Michael and Gavin. They are together.”

Jeremy looked at him in horror. This was not the kind of drama he needed in his life. “Does… Does he  _ know _ ?”

“I should hope so. He’s oblivious sometimes, but even he would notice multiple people in his bed.” Ryan flashed him a crooked smile. “We’re all together.”

“Oh! Thank god. That’s okay then. You had me worried the three of you had some kind of soap opera shit going on.”

“No, we’re  _ all _ together. Michael, Gavin, Geoff, Jack, and myself.” Jeremy gaped at him for a second, trying to take in what he was saying, but Ryan continued, “Not how we planned on telling you, I’ll give you that. But if you’re gonna stick around it is something you should know.”

“Oh. Well.”  _ Sticking around!  _ Ryan thinks he’ll be sticking around! “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me. I should probably, uh, you know, get dressed now though” Jeremy tightened the towel around his waist. 

Ryan just laughed again and stepped aside to let him leave the bathroom. 

Jeremy quickly changed and hid in his room until the noise level in the house indicated that most people were up. He had lots of time to think about what Ryan had told him. He had noticed Jack and Geoff acting coupley, that was no surprise, and Michael and Gavin argued about their domestic life enough that even Jeremy had noticed. Finding out that not only were both couples together but that Ryan was part of the mix was a surprise. He supposed that it wasn’t exactly a secret they wanted everyone in the criminal underground to know. Relationships made people vulnerable, easy to manipulate. Jeremy wondered how they had all gotten together in the first place. 

Jeremy made his way back to the kitchen where the whole team was gathered around the table. Jack told him there were eggs waiting for him in the pan so he began getting himself some food. 

“Morning Lil J!” piped up Gavin. “How are you liking the cabin?”

Jeremy sat down, not liking the glint in Gavin’s eye. “It’s nice. I slept well.”

“Doesn’t it have a  _ great view _ -Ow!” Michael elbowed the Brit in the ribs. 

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “The mountains are great but,” he made eye contact with Michael, “I’ve seen bigger.” He took a sip of his coffee as Gavin spluttered and the room erupted with laughter. 

Michael laughed the loudest, thankfully. “You of all people should know that it isn’t the size that counts, it’s what you do with it.”

Before Jeremy could reply, Geoff interrupted them. “Alright, alright. You guys are all assholes. We get it. Now listen up, we’ve got heist prep to do. “

The crew was very professional for the set up. Jeremy wasn’t used to seeing everyone quite so serious. That isn’t to say there wasn’t still a lot of joking around and teasing happening, but everyone remained focused on their tasks. 

One thing Jeremy did notice was the little affections the team gave one another. He watched as they sat too close when peering at a laptop screen. How Jack would let her hand linger on their shoulders when she brought them drinks. There were smiles and touches that looked so natural and easy it made Jeremy wonder if he’d missed them before or if the crew decided they didn’t need to hide their relationship from him anymore. 

The day passed quickly and soon Geoff was yelling at everyone to get to bed because they had an early start the next morning. 

They were all up before dawn the next day. Geoff went over the plan one more time and then everyone piled into the cars. Geoff and Jack were going to pick up a flatbed truck they would use to drive away with the vehicles. They had trees on the back to make it look like all they were carrying was lumber. The stolen vehicles would sit inside a cavity in with logs all around them. The two of them were going to hide in an abandoned train tunnel.

The other four were in charge of stealing the cars, and losing any tails before meeting up at the tunnel for the getaway. They were going to split up. Michael and Gavin were going to get dropped off on a narrow part of the mountain road and block the path. Jeremy and Ryan would continue down the road so that they could alert the guys when the truck was incoming. Then both teams would attack. The goal was to make off with two to four vehicles and disable the rest so they couldn’t be followed.

After dropping off Michael, Gavin, and an excessive amount of explosives, Ryan and Jeremy proceeded to their hiding spot. They were early because they weren’t sure exactly when the truck would come and the lads required time to set up their roadblock. Which meant the two of them had lots of time. Just the two of them. In a small car. After that awkward conversation that morning. Jeremy figured the Vagabond wasn’t much of a small talk kind of guy at the best of times, but the silence they were in was oppressive. Jeremy wished Gavin were here to fill it with inane questions. 

He tried to do his best in the techie’s absence. “This must be a nice ski area. You ever go skiing?”

Ryan hummed. “No, I’ve actually never been. Grew up in the South and then moved to Los Santos. Not much snow around. You?”

Yeah, uh, Boston gets lots of snow and there are a few good places to ski around there. I’ve been a few times.” They lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. Ryan kept looking at him with a thoughtful expression and Jeremy had to fight the urge to fidget and squirm under his gaze. 

Eventually the other man broke the silence. “Were you seeing anyone in Boston?”

“What? No.” That was a very unexpected question from the ‘masked murderer.’

“No special girl? Or guy?”

“There was a girl I spent some time with, but we never- we were just close friends.”

“Huh.”

“May I ask why you’re so interested?” He was getting a little defensive. 

The Vagabond shrugged. “Michael and Gavin aren’t subtle. I’ve seen a lot of people’s reactions to the two of them. Very occasionally people find out about the five of us. And never has anyone reacted by saying  _ thank god _ before. You’ve never seemed bothered by the two of them. I was just wondering why.”

“Oh.” Jeremy could only imagine the types of reactions the crew had gotten in the past. “I mean, it isn’t really my business is it? I don’t really care who people date. As long as everyone’s an adult and you aren’t hurting anyone…” Ryan raised an eyebrow and Jeremy was quickly reminded he was talking to someone with a reputation for brutal murder. “You know what I mean!” 

“Sure. It’s just unexpected.” Ryan paused. “Refreshing though. It’s nice that I don’t have to kill you for being a bigot.”

Jeremy laughed, startled. “Yeah, please don’t do that!”

Now that the ice was broken the two of them could chat without it being too awkward. They mostly talked about video games, a passion the whole crew shared. After about an hour they spotted the truck.

It was a car shipping truck, with eight vehicles in tarps on the runners. There was a convoy of black military vehicles with it, probably with a few guards inside. Ryan texted the info to Michael and once the truck got in position they heard the loud boom. Suddenly the road in front of the convoy was blocked by a landslide. 

Now the fun part started. Ryan and Jeremy started firing from the back while Michael snipped front the front. Gavin was jamming radio signals, hoping that they wouldn’t be able to call for back up right away. As planned, most of the firepower was focused on Jeremy and Ryan, who were able to take a good position behind some boulders. This left Gavin free to sneak up and get into the vehicles. He was able to unwrap one of the ones at the top and discovered it had a turret built in. Hopping in, he was then able to fire at the military personnel from behind. This caused the remaining fighters to scatter.

The Fakes wasted no time in getting to the truck. Ryan covered them while the lads unwrapped and started the cars. The military regrouped and started to retaliate. 

“Fuck! I can’t hold them off much longer!”

“Okay. Just one more minute then get in Jeremy’s car!” Michael yelled back. He started planting explosives where he could before jumping in the back of the one Gavin was going to drive. Jeremy was behind the wheel of the second one and called out to Ryan when he was ready. Michael took over the cover fire and Ryan retreated into the turret of the armoured car. Both stolen vehicles made their way down the tiny path they had scoped out ahead of time. Gavin was ahead of them and Jeremy brought up the rear. 

The military raced to get into cars of their own, not realizing the trap Michael had set for them. As soon as they started the cars the sticky bombs he had left behind when off and the expensive military vehicles disappeared into a giant fireball. 

Not everyone had gotten caught in the explosion and the remaining forces returned to the black SUVs and followed the thieves. Ryan and Michael had a wild time aiming at them while being jostled by the bumps in the road. 

Jeremy’s radio buzzed, Gavin’s signal jammer no longer working. It was Geoff warning them that helicopters were incoming. They had about five minutes to get to the tunnel before the eyes in the skies would make it too risky. 

Jeremy focused on making sure the car stayed on the road. There were a lot of sharp turns, the path had probably been made by tiny ATVs. Luckily the turreted cars were more agile than the SUVs and combined with the turrets they were able to make a lot of their pursuers crash into trees at the sides of the path. 

The were just rounding a bend when Jeremy watched Michael get shot. He saw the spray of blood and Michael retreat into the body of the armoured car. He called out to his partner. “Just you buddy! Make it count!”

Gavin sped up, no longer worried about sticking together. They were coming to a part where the paths branched and they had a greater chance of losing the tailing cars. Jeremy slowed down, hoping to give the others a chance to get away unnoticed. He didn’t know how badly Michael was injured and he wanted to get the heat off them. 

Ryan got a lucky shot and the lead car flipped on its side, blocking the other cars for long enough that they could lose them. Jeremy started to hear the sound of helicopter blades in the distance, but he didn’t know if they had spotted the cars through the trees yet. He was getting close to the train tunnel, and crossing his fingers and holding his breath he gunned it through the open area between the edge of the trees and the opening. Once they were back under cover he and Ryan jumped out. They went back to the opening and started to set up the barricade. 

Jeremy was worried. Geoff was supposed to be there to help them, but he was nowhere in sight. He shared an uneasy look with Ryan and the two of them got to work. Before they finished blocking the entrance entirely, Jeremy looked out and up at the sky. They helicopters were still high in the air, circling. 

“I don’t think they saw us,” he told Ryan. “They’re still around the landslide area, they aren’t looking here. We might get away.”

“Let’s hope it’s in one piece.” Ryan said with a frown. They drove farther down the tunnel to where the flatbed was waiting. The first car was loaded inside and Jack was waiting for them. There was no sign of the others. 

“Where’s Michael?” shouted Ryan as he burst from the car.

Jack was calm, which reassured Jeremy. “Geoff and Gavin are taking Michael to a safe place to patch him up. They hit his shoulder and he’s losing too much blood to stay here, but he’ll be fine.”

Ryan nodded and Jeremy drove the truck into the waiting cavity. The three of them strapped the load down so it wouldn’t shift and began stacking stumps in the rear opening to make it seem like the only thing on the truck was logs. They tried to ignore the blood splattering the first car and trailing around the truck. When everything was properly camouflaged they got in the cab and drove to the other end of the tunnel. There was a logging camp near the exit so the plan was to merge onto the back roads unnoticed. Hopefully before the military set up roadblocks. 

The getaway went smoothly. No one stopped them and they didn’t meet any trouble on the roads. Geoff called to assure them that Michael was alright but sleeping from the painkillers they had given him. The three of them would drive straight back to Los Santos and the other three would continue with the plan to unload the stolen goods into a shipping container at a small, northern Californian dockyard. They had arranged a trustworthy dealer to deliver the container to Los Santos. 

They arrived back in town the next day, having spent the night at a motel along the way. Jeremy could tell Jack and Ryan were anxious about Michael. They weren’t going to celebrate a successful heist until they could be sure that everyone made it out okay. 

They drove to a cookie cutter neighbourhood that Jeremy didn’t recognize. They pulled up to a row of duplex townhouses. Each set had four front doors, Jeremy assumed they lead to two upstairs and two downstairs units, but after stepping through one of them he realized the Fakes had completely gutted the building on the inside. 

All the front doors lead to the same open foyer. The wall that must have divided the two duplexes down the middle was gone, and a grand staircase leading to the upper floor was in its place. There was nothing to separate the downstairs units either, and he caught a glimpse of a comfortable looking living room on the left and a large dining room table on his right. 

They went upstairs and Jeremy saw a small kitchen with a breakfast bar instead of a table and a cozy living room with a nice TV and entertainment system. Both spaces were larger than they would have been when it was divided into two apartments. There were a few doors that Jeremy assumed lead to bedrooms and bathrooms. 

Michael was lying on one of the couches with his arm in a sling. Gavin was curled up beside him, scrolling on his phone until the others arrived. He leapt up to greet the new arrivals. Geoff had been washing dishes in the kitchen and stopped to dry his hands before joining them. 

They soon moved to sit around Michael with Jack fussing over him. 

“I’m fine! Guys, I’m fine! Geoff got the bullet out, I’m just need to make sure the stitches don’t rip. I’ll be good as new in a week.”

Geoff brought over plates of nachos and they debriefed like that, sitting clumped around the couch. Eventually Michael started nodding off, probably from the painkillers. It was also pretty late and they had all been traveling so everyone decided it was time to call it a night. 

Jack turned to look at Jeremy. “Would you rather crash here or have someone drive you to Matt’s?”

“Whatever is the least trouble.” Jeremy answered.

“Let’s get you set up with a room then. There is a guest bedroom downstairs that is probably quieter.” So Jeremy followed Jack back down the stairs. 

The downstairs had mostly been turned into one big open concept space. There was a huge kitchen, much more practical than the one upstairs, and the table looked like it could seat 20 people. On the other side of the stairs was a nest of cosy couches and a gigantic flatscreen with every type of console imaginable under it. Towards the back of the house were rooms that must have once been bedrooms and were mainly turned into offices. One of them still had a bed in it as well as a computer and desk which looked messy enough to make Jeremy believe this was someone’s office who would stay up working so late they needed to crash sometimes. Jack showed him where the downstairs bathroom was and made sure he knew that he could ask for anything he needed. 

Settling in Jeremy thought about the house he was in. It was clearly the crew’s private home and not a safe house. It was clever, by keeping the outside looking like a set of duplexes no one would get suspicious of five people all living together. He wondered if they all had assigned doors to throw off the neighbours. 

The next morning he woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs. He followed it upstairs to find Geoff cooking. Jeremy was given a plate and he ate at the breakfast bar. 

It was weirdly domestic to see everyone in their home. The older three members of the crew were already awake and in the kitchen when Jeremy got up apparently the whole crew were early risers, but Gavin would usually crash after large heists because he would stay up too long before them. Michael was the type who slept a lot when he was injured so no one expected to see him before noon. 

Jack offered to drive Jeremy back to Matt’s place after he was done eating. When he was getting dropped off Jack mentioned that someone would come by to pick him up at 7 for a celebratory dinner and drinks later. He was left with the instructions to ‘dress nice.’

Matt was glad to see him back in one piece. Jeremy gave him the rundown of everything that happened. He wasn’t sure if he should mention the scene he witnessed in the kitchen on his first day at the cabin, but when he mentioned he had stayed at the five’s home Matt seemed surprised and asked when the core Fake’s had told him they were together. Matt got a kick out of the story.

Jeremy also mentioned the dinner and asked Matt how nice he was supposed to dress. He was not expecting Matt to get suddenly serious and ask if he owned a suit. Jeremy didn’t.

“Oh well. Too late now. I’m sure Geoff will fix that soon enough. You’ll be fine in a button down and tie.”

Jeremy wondered what Matt meant about Geoff fixing him not owning a suit. He asked Matt but the man just shrugged and said. “Dude’s picky about suits.”

At 6:30 Jeremy was dressed in his best clothes, black slacks and a dark grey button down. He had a black tie borrowed from Matt to complete the look. He played a game on his phone to pass the time.

At exactly 7 a sleek pink sports car pulled up outside Matt’s place. Jeremy snorted. He wasn’t sure how the scammer could keep his anonymity with displays like that. 

Jeremy went out to see that the door was open for him. He got inside and was surprised to that it was Geoff who had picked him up. No one else was with him. 

He was even more surprised when they got to the restaurant and they were shown to a table for two.

“I thought everyone else was coming?” he asked, playing with his napkin. This place was so fancy it didn’t even have menus, just set courses. Jeremy hadn’t thought places like this were real, he thought they were made up in movies. He felt very underdressed not to have a suit.

“We’ll join them later. I wanted to get to know you a bit more.”

Well that was fucking ominous. “What do you want to know?”

“Where’d you learn to drive?”

“In a parking lot?”

Geoff gave him a look.

“Well, me and my buddies, we used to, uh,  _ borrow _ a neighbour’s car and take it down some back roads.”

“Hmm that makes sense. Ryan said you could drive. Knew how to avoid the worst of the ruts and made some impressive turns.”

Jeremy blushed. “It was nothing.”

“He said you also had a great sense of timing. Quick thinking, knew when to get him good angles and helped the others get away. He was very impressed.”

“I wanted the heist to go well.” Jeremy was embarrassed, had Ryan really said all that about him?

Geoff asked more questions about his past. He pressed a bit and after a couple glasses of wine he told the boss about Joey.

“It was just a dumb accident you know? Shouldn’ta hit him so hard. Wouldn’ta if I’d known it was him.” He frowned into his glass.

Just then the waiter brought the main course. Some kind of beef dish with a name Jeremy couldn’t pronounce. 

Geoff waited for the server to leave before continuing the conversation. “So now the mob is after you.”

“Yup.” 

“And what are your plans now? I know I’ve asked you before, are you still planning to stick around?”

Jeremy’s heart sped up. He really hoped this conversation was going the way he wanted it to. “Yeah. Los Santos has been treating me well so far. I’m happy to try my luck here.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Are you thinking of taking on smaller jobs or would you be interested in getting in a crew again?”

Jeremy still didn’t know if this was going to turn into an offer. God he wished Geoff would come straight to the point. He wouldn’t be asking this if he was just curious, happy to let Jeremy go off in the world on his own, right? “I’ll see what comes my way, I guess. I’d have to trust the crew though. I wouldn’t want to work with someone who’d sell me out when they found out about the bounty.”

“What do you think of the Fakes? Do we fall in that category?”

“For sure. You guys have been a lot of fun to work with. And if you haven’t sold me to the mob yet you probably aren’t going to.”

“Well in that case, what would you say to joining us full time?”

Relief washed over Jeremy, excitement soon followed. “Absolutely! Thank you!”

“No need to thank me, kid. You’re good, too good to let go. I wouldn’t want someone like you working with the other scumbags in this town. I need you on our side.” Geoff raised his glass in a toast. “To the start of something good!”

There was still desert and Geoff took the time to fill him in on what his role was going to be. Jeremy was surprised and excited to hear that while he may start by working with the support crew, Geoff had plans to make him one of the core heist members. He could even have the chance of running his own heist if he took the time to plan it and pitch it to Geoff. 

They finished their meal and drove to the same bar they had been to after the Head Hunter raid. This time they had booked the private event room on the second floor. It wasn’t just the six of them Jeremy was expecting. Everyone who had been involved with the heist was there from the support team, as well as Matt and strangers Jeremy hadn’t met yet. 

As soon as they walked in the door Geoff shouted, “He said yes! Meet the newest member of the Fakes!” A cheer went up and Jeremy blushed a bright red. 

He didn’t remember much more of the night. A whole crew of people buying him drinks will do that to you. He just knew he had a great time with his new coworkers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at a point where I can either draw this out as a slow burn, or do a time skip and wrap things up.  
> Thoughts?


	8. Team Lads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so everyone who commented not only asked for a slow burn, but a /painful/ slow burn.
> 
> I mean, I'll try to deliver, but I gotta ask: who hurt you?

Jeremy loved settling in to his new life. He did eventually move out of Matt’s house and bought an apartment of his own. He got a car so he didn’t have to rely on people driving him around all the time. He was thinking about getting a cat.

He spent a few months working with the support team and training with the core five. He worked on hand to hand combat with Michael and Ryan. Michael redeemed himself in their second match and the two of them remained evenly matched. Most of the time Jeremy had the upper hand, but Michael held his own and won almost half the time. Ryan was different. If he couldn’t immediately overwhelm his opponent he almost never won. He was big and powerful, but he wasn’t necessarily fast and he didn’t have the endurance or the attention span to grapple for long. 

Ryan and Jack were good for working on his shooting skills. Jeremy spent a lot more time at the shooting range than he was used to. Getting tips from pros like them increased his skills exponentially. Ryan even taught him how to throw knives which was cool. 

When Jeremy started to join the heist crew for their bigger jobs he decided he needed a persona so that he wasn’t instantly recognizable to his old crew. 

Now follow his logic here: if someone was hiding their identity and couldn’t draw attention to themselves then  _ logically _ that person would, you know, hide their identity and not draw attention to themselves. Therefore the  _ last thing _ anyone would expect of a person hiding their identity would be to dress really obnoxiously and make a big scene right? And so, Rimmy Tim, in all his colourful glory, was born. 

Michael and Gavin were aghast at his new style, but Ryan just seemed amused and Geoff had only taken one look and sighed. Jack was the only one to appreciate his masterpiece, and on their first heist with Jeremy as a full time member she found a new Hawaiian shirt that matched his purple and orange colour scheme. Geoff’s sigh was tangible when he saw them together. 

+++++

Jeremy was innocently walking down the street one day when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He got the sudden feeling that someone was following behind him. He wasn’t so much of a rookie to look suspiciously over his shoulder, but he did get his phone out. Swiping open the front facing camera, he used it as a high-tech periscope to look behind him. He didn’t see anything, but he had made it this far in life by trusting his gut, and he wasn’t about to stop now. 

He changed his route to be around busier streets. More people meant whoever was following him would be less likely to try something, and he may even get lost in the crowd. A dirty white van passed him, and Jeremy was sure he had seen it a few minutes ago parked down the road. He hurried his pace.

It took a few minutes, but he was pretty sure he’d lost the van. He was also farther from his apartment than he wanted to be. Jeremy decided to cut through a back alley as a shortcut to get back to his street, but when he got to the other side the van screeched up out of nowhere and cut him off.

Jeremy was just shifting his weight so he could sprint in the other direction when the side door opened and Michael stuck his head out. “Get in bitch, we’re going heisting!”

Letting out a startled laugh, Jeremy grabbed Michael’s outstretched hand and let himself be pulled into the back of the van. Gavin let out a cheery ‘Ello!’ as he pulled away from the curb. He and Michael were both dressed in black combat gear. Jeremy spied another set in the back alongside everything needed to rob several banks. There were various guns, and a few duffles scattered around the floor. 

“What are you clowns up to now?” Jeremy demanded. 

“We’re gonna hold up a petrol station Jeremy!” Gavin was practically bouncing in his seat, and when he accidentally drove over the curb it sent them all in the air. 

“Yeah, suit up!” With that Michael climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Jeremy in the back to put on his black outfit and bullet proof vest. 

Gavin pulled up to a gas station a in the middle of the city centre and the three of them hopped out with their guns and bags. 

“Rimmy, you get the cash. Bird brain and I will deal with the rest.”

“ _ Mogar _ , that’s not my code na-”

“Shhh! It’s showtime baby!”

The three of them burst into the store. Jeremy pulled a gun on the alarmed cashier. The man’s surprise quickly faded to boredom as he opened the cash and began filling Jeremy’s bag without being asked. Clearly this guy had lived in Los Santos long enough to know the drill. 

“Alright, we got everything we need. It’s time to split!” Michael held the door open and Jeremy grabbed the bag from the cashier, along with a handful of chocolate bars, and backed out of the shop.

He and Michael got in the back and Gavin dove into the driver’s seat with unnecessary theatrics. As they pulled away the sound of sirens started behind them. Now that the pressure was on Gavin’s driving became noticeably better. He navigated them on a whirlwind route through the city and pretty soon the cops were out of sight. 

Gavin pulled into an underground parking lot and announced, “We’re gonna abandon the van here.”

The three of them emptied their belongings quickly, stashing everything in the duffle bags. Jeremy didn’t get a chance to see what was in the other two bags and he suspected his crew mates were keeping it from him on purpose. 

Gavin proceeded to lead them out of the parking garage and through a mess of twisted back alleys until they came to an inconspicuous grey door. It had a ‘Danger! High Voltage’ sign on it that Gavin ignored in favour of picking the lock. Once they were in they followed the narrow corridor deeper into the building.  Jeremy tried to leave as much space between him and the caged electrical components as possible. Eventually they came to an elevator with key card access. Gavin put a device on it that Jeremy recognized from his first stealth mission with the crew.

The lock flashed green after a minute and the elevator doors dinged open. The three of them piled in and rode the elevator all the way to the top floor. From there they snuck around hallways until they came to a staircase. Gavin picked one more lock and then they came to the roof. 

Jeremy gasped at the sight. It was late enough in the day that the sun was low in the sky and cast a golden light on the city’s polluted haze. It looked unreal. Gavin and Michael went right up to the guardrail to admire the view, but Jeremy held back. 

Michael noticed their third wasn’t with them and called him over.

“I’m good here, thanks!” was his reply.

“Wot? Are you afraid of heights? Come here for a selfie you dope!” said Gavin.

Jeremy felt himself blush. “I mean. Yeah, now that you mention it.”

“Awww” cooed Gavin. “Lil J! Don’t worry! You’re perfectly safe!”

Jeremy let himself be cajoled closer to the edge for Gavin’s picture. Once that was done he moved away without being foolish enough to look down. 

Michael opened up his bag to reveal a few cases of beer. Gavin proceeded to pull out bags of chips and other snacks. Jeremy laughed and emptied the chocolate bars out of his pockets. 

Soon they were all on the verge of tipsy, laughing, joking, and generally being rowdy. The sun was setting and painting the sky vibrant colours. Jeremy was too busy getting caught up in the sound of Michael’s machine gun style laugh and Gavin’s almost soundless squeaks to notice the passage of time. It was only when he shivered from the cool night air did he realize that the first stars had started to come out. 

It was hours later when they finally dropped Jeremy off at his house and drove away. They had split the cash, only a few hundred dollars between them. Once Jeremy was back in his room he started hunting for his phone. It had stayed in his sweater pocket when he had changed into his heist gear. Unlocking it he saw a few notifications, but one stood out from the rest.

It was a new group chat. The group name was Team Lads and the picture was the selfie Gavin had taken that afternoon. 

Suddenly Jeremy realized what this afternoon was: an initiation of sorts. He got a warm feeling in his stomach at the thought of being included. 


	9. Battle Buddies

Jeremy had fully and officially moved up to the main crew. He still helped with the support crew when his skills were needed, but that was very rare as all of them were more specialized than him. The raid on the Department of Defense had resulted in a nice bit of income. Some of the information was sold to interested buyers, the car heist got the attention of a few wealthy parties hoping for similar payoffs. The crew also managed to blackmail a few people who had been covering up misused taxpayer money, then they would sell that information to journalists and make money on both ends. They had to be careful to stay anonymous with that kind of dealing, get the wrong person in trouble and it could mean bad things for the crew’s future. 

The crew mostly did heists in smaller groups. It was common for groups of twos, threes, and occasionally fours to get the job done. Only their large complicated heists would involve all six of them at once. Very, very rarely would they enlist the help of the support crew on heists, and usually they focused on surveillance and behind the scenes hacking. 

Currently Geoff, Jack, Michael, and Gavin were out of town chasing down a diamond shipment. Jeremy and Ryan had a bit of work to do while they were gone, but nothing very interesting. 

And Jeremy could tell Ryan was getting stir crazy. The guy didn’t like having nothing to do and he had a very short attention span for mindless computer work. 

So really, it didn’t come as a surprise when Ryan appeared in the doorway to the office Jeremy claimed as his work space, keys in hand, practically fidgeting out of his skin. 

“Hey. You busy right now?”

Jeremy couldn’t pretend that he had actually been doing productive work for the past few hours, and he knew for a fact that whatever Ryan had planned would be way more fun than sitting at his desk for any longer. 

“Nope. What are we doing?”

“You’ll see. Get Rimmied up and met me outside in ten.”

Jeremy lost no time in changing into his brightly coloured suit and cowboy hat. He was waiting in front of their office building exactly ten minutes later when an unfamiliar beige car pulled up in front of him. Ryan was in the driver’s seat in his full Vagabond outfit. Jeremy hopped in and looked at the car. He was 99% sure that Ryan had just stolen it, so this outing was off to a good start. 

He also noticed a bag with what looked like guns and rocket launchers in the back seat. “Hey,” he said, “didn’t Geoff tell you that you were on a murder break?” He had. Geoff had very clearly told Ryan he was on a murder break and not to get into too much trouble while the rest of the crew was too far away to help him out of it. 

Even through the mask Jeremy could tell Ryan was grinning at him. “Don’t worry, those aren’t for murdering!”

“If you say so pal. Where are we headed to anyway?”

“Blaine County. The police out there just busted an illegal racing ring and confiscated all the vehicles. They always have a bunch of fun stuff in their evidence locker and the best thing is that they have almost zero security. I wanna break in and see if they have anything good to steal.”

They had to wait until dark, but eventually it was time to break into the police station. Ryan had ditched the stolen car far away from the station and the two of them had walked the rest of the way. Around 1 am the car was rigged to explode, hopefully pulling most of the late-night officers away from the station. 

Right on schedule the blue and red flashing lights of three cruisers disappeared into the distance and Ryan and Jeremy began infiltrating the station. Ryan was right about there being no security. The evidence locker was a garage separate from the main station and locked with a padlock and chain. Ryan had bolt cutters in his bag and Jeremy wondered how many times the crew had done this and the police just replaced the chain. 

Once they were into the garage the two of them loaded up on weed and what looked like homemade moonshine. Ryan also snagged a drawer full of keys so that they wouldn’t have to hotwire the cars. They were even numbered, which was very thoughtful of the Blaine County police.

The two crew members spent longer than they thought in the car impound lot cooing over the compounded super cars. Ryan had taken a shine to a particularly sleek motorcycle and was debating between that and a car that looked like the batmobile. 

Suddenly all the lights in the compound turned on and beams of flashlights were seen at the fences. Jeremy and Ryan both ducked for cover behind the tires of the largest car in the lot. 

“Fuck,” swore Ryan. “Looks like we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

“What are we going to do now?”

Jeremy could hear how vicious the Vagabond’s grin was, even through the mask. “Well we do have these nice fast cars, how about a good old-fashioned police chase? It’s a shame, I won’t be able to take the bike.”

“Or,” Jeremy said, looking up at the car they were using as cover, “I think I have a better idea.”

+++++

It truly was one of the best stunt jumps Jeremy had ever seen. Time slowed down as Ryan gunned the bike up a ramp car and into the back of the waiting liberator. As soon as he was safely in Jeremy drove straight over the cars in his way and crashed through the fence. The police started to shoot at them but whoever owned the monster truck before them had it armoured for some reason. It was so impractical and Jeremy was in love. 

They didn’t get far before the police started to chase them in cars. Ryan had moved so he could hang on to the passenger side and Jeremy watched in alarm as he hefted a rocket launcher over his shoulder.

Before he could call out in alarm Ryan had fired. It made an odd noise, and the boom wasn’t what Jeremy expected, but for some reason it wasn’t unfamiliar. Ryan fired again, but this time Jeremy was watching for it in the side mirror. 

“Fireworks?! Really Ryan?”

“Eh, Murder break. There’s something for you in the bag.” The Vagabond answered as he reloaded. 

Jeremy reached into the bag on the passenger seat and pulled out what looked like a pistol, except it was larger than any he had seen before. Shrugging Jeremy just rolled down the window, pointed the gun at the cop car that had drawn level with him, and fired. A bright orange light erupted from the gun. A Flare. Jeremy gave a startled laugh as the police car swerved out of the way. 

Jeremy was having a blast. Even though the cruisers were faster they were no match for the flares, fireworks, and the liberator being able to just plain drive over any roadblocks. They soon outdistanced the police so Jeremy pulled off road and drove up mount Chiliad.

They didn’t get to the top, but when they got to a ridge they stopped. Jeremy hopped out and walked around to Ryan’s side as he removed his mask. 

“Dude, I wanna turn with that thing!” 

Ryan smiled wickedly and handed Jeremy the rocket launcher and some fireworks charges. Jeremy shot one into the sky and whooped as it exploded in rainbow colours. Ryan grabbed one of the flares and soon it was hanging in the air like a bright green star. 

The two of them were like children on the Fourth of July, setting off explosions and giggling. Jeremy hadn’t heard Ryan giggle before, usually the gent had a more subdued chuckle. This laugh was more childlike, more delighted. It was also slightly maniacal and it made Jeremy laugh right along with him.

Too soon they ran out of ammo. The police never bothered chasing them even though they were literally sending up a beacon to show their location. Jeremy turned back to the Liberator and frowned. 

“What’s with the long face Lil J?”

Jeremy groaned at the nickname. “Not you too! And I just realized that this thing isn’t going to fit in my building’s garage and it is a little conspicuous to park on the street.”

“Oh, that’s no problem. We’ve got a warehouse for some of our vehicles out by the airfield. I’ll give you directions.”

The car ride to the airfield wasn’t any less exciting. Jeremy decided he needed to go over every bump to see how much air he could get. Ryan didn’t mind the stunts and even pointed out some better dunes for Jeremy to use as a ramp. 

They stashed the car and pulled the new bike out of the back. Ryan caressed the body with a tender look on his face. He looked up at Jeremy with the same wicked smirk he was coming to realize meant trouble.

“Wanna see how fast this baby can go?”

And that was all it took to get Jeremy on the back of the bike, gripping Ryan for dear life as he cruised down the highway at top speed. At every turn they dipped close to the ground. Jeremy could feel the wind in his hair and the roaring bike between his legs. It was a powerful feeling. Jeremy had never felt more alive.

With the speed they were going they made it back to the city in no time. Ryan dropped Jeremy off at the office building so he could retrieve his car. Jeremy hopped off the bike but Ryan caught his sleeve. Jeremy turned to face him and saw that his crew member had a soft expression on his face. 

“Hey, thanks for coming out with me tonight. I really needed that and I had a lot of fun.”

Jeremy smiled and patted Ryan’s shoulder. “It was my pleasure, any time you wanna do that again just ask, buddy.”

“Who’s Buddy and why should I ask him?”

“Alright. If you’re gonna be like that I’m leaving.” 

“Ah Jeremy, Don’t be like that buddy! We’ll be best buddies and bamboozle Blaine County.”

“Best Buddies isn’t very intimidating. I don’t think that is what the newspaper headlines will say.”

“Battle Buddies, then.” Ryan sat back on the bike and crossed his arms. 

“Yeah, I like the sound of that. Battle Buddies.”

Drive home safe, Battle Buddy.”

“Only if you do. Night Ryan!”

Jeremy watched as Ryan drove off into the darkness and got in his own car. He wore a stupid grin on his face the whole way because of a silly nickname. 

When he finally got to bed he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about Ryan’s evil grin and delighted laugh. He tried to memorize how it felt to sit on the back of the bike with the engine throbbing below him, the wind in his hair, and his arms tight enough around Ryan’s strong body to feel rather than hear him shouting with excitement. 

Admiring Ryan was a bad habit he had started soon after seeing him on his knees for Michael during that heist. Knowing the five of them were in a relationship caused Jeremy to have more than a few inappropriate thoughts about their sex life. He was curious about how it would work. They were all undeniably beautiful people and imagining them together in any combination had definitely helped him get off before, but he always felt guilty thinking about his coworkers like that. 

Tonight was no different, except instead he focused on what it would be like touching Ryan himself. Now that he knew how it felt to have his arms around the man. Would he make that same delighted laugh as he took Jeremy apart?

After he was finished the shame washed over him. He cleaned himself up and rolled over, vowing to go to the bar and meet someone so he could stop thinking about his hot coworkers. He may even download a dating app. He really needed to meet someone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Battle Buddies! 
> 
> I'm trying to show Jeremy getting close with everyone, so that means next up is someone we haven't seen too much of: Geoff!


	10. Scaredy Geoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've started the angsty story arc. Check the tags for changes.

Jeremy had a date. It was him, Matt, the newly released Red Dead multiplayer, and a lethal amount of junk food. They were starting early so they could play all day and into the night, probably into the next morning.

To be nice (and to get some exercise and fresh air he knew he wouldn’t be getting for the rest of the day) Jeremy decided to stop at one of the city’s parks to take a walk. The park had an excellent cafe in it so he was planning on stopping to pick up coffee and pastries to bring. 

It was a beautiful fall day, the air was clear but not cold, the leaves were turning beautiful shades of orange and red, and the squirrels were running around the park looking for food to stash. He almost regretted planning on spending the rest of it indoors instead of hiking or something. Almost. 

He was wandering around the path with his hands in his pockets, taking big gulps of the fresh fall air when he noticed a woman on a park bench. She was wearing a short black dress, one that hinted it was her outfit from last night, and her head was in her hands. Jeremy felt a pang of pity for her. Clearly she wasn’t having a great morning after. 

He got closer, intending to just pass quietly and mind his own business, but then the woman’s breath hitched as if she had been crying. Even though part of his brain was screaming at him that this was Los Santos and minding your own business was a way to survive, Jeremy couldn’t just ignore that. He stopped and turned towards her.

“Hey,” the stranger looked up. Even though her face was covered in tears and her makeup had run down her cheeks, Jeremy could tell she was stunningly beautiful. “Are you alright?”

The girl gave him a sad smile and said “I’ve been better.”

“You’re not hurt are you?”

“No, but my psycho boyfriend, well,  _ ex _ -boyfriend now, kicked me out of the car last night and told me to never talk to him ever again.”

“Last  _ night _ ? You didn’t sleep here did you?” Jeremy looked back down at the woman’s dress. It was not warm enough to protect her from the cold autumn night. 

“I didn’t exactly have a choice. My purse with my keys and phone are still in his car.”

“That is fucked up!” Jeremy instantly took off his sweater and handed it to her. “I was on my way to the cafe there. Can I get you a coffee and some food to warm you up?”

She smiled at him and it was dazzling. “You’re a real gentleman aren’t you? You don’t see that in Los Santos much.”

She stood up, wrapping Jeremy’s sweater around her shoulders. Jeremy did a double take. He knew the sweater would be big on her, but she was swimming in it. She was almost a head shorter than him and tiny. 

The two of them walked to the cafe. Jeremy ordered and paid for two coffees and a breakfast wrap. While they were waiting for their order he shot Matt a quick text telling him something came up and he’d be a while.

“I’m not keeping you from anything am I?”

“Nah, nothing important. I was just letting a friend know I’ll be late.”

“She won’t be mad, will she?”

“He can deal with it. He’s probably just going to start gaming without me.”

Jeremy saw her wrinkle her nose. “Oh. Do you spend a lot of time gaming?”

Her tone was disapproving, and something about this girl made him want her to like him. “No, it’s just something I do with friends now and then.” Or very often, but he didn’t want this girl to think he spent all his time in a basement gaming.

“Oh that’s good. Gamers are always so violent.”

Jeremy let out a strained laugh. Luckily their order was up so he collected the food and they sat down.

“So if you’re not a gamer what do you do with yourself?” the woman asked, pushing some of her blonde hair out of her eyes.

_ Crimes _ thought Jeremy but instead he scrambled for a better answer. “I do a lot of creative stuff: drawing, writing. But who doesn’t spend too much time in front of Netflix these days?”

The girl laughed and they got into a discussion about current shows they were watching. They chatted for a while and soon they were taking their last sips of coffee. 

“I guess you need to be on your way.” the girl said. “Oh, I just realized, I never got your name. I’m Tracey.”

“Oh yeah! That was rude of me sorry. Jeremy.”

“Well Jeremy, thank you for the coffee and for cheering me up.”

“It was my pleasure, really. What are you going to do now?”

Tracey frowned. “I guess I have to go get my keys. That won’t be fun.”

“Would you like me to come with you? Just in case anything happens?”

“Oh, would you? That would make you a real knight in shining armour. I’m sorry to be such a damsel in distress.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m happy to help.”

The ex’s house was a few blocks away. Tracey stopped at a gate to a fence. “This is it. Do you mind asking for it? I don’t really want to face him right now.”

“Yeah sure. I’ve got it.”

Jeremy went up to the door and knocked. A minute later it cracked open, still on the chain. A man peeked out. “Who the hell are you?”

“Look man, I’m just here to pick up Tracey’s stuff.”

“I was wondering how long it would take her to notice she left it here after storming out. Hang on.” The door closed and a few seconds later it opened again and the man was holding a bag. Before handing it over he asked. “I haven’t seen you before. When did she hook you in?” 

Jeremy bristled. “I found her crying in the park this morning, asshole.”

“Ah, I thought you were one of the ones she was cheating on me with. If you have any sense you’ll give her her stuff and walk away. That bitch is crazy.”

Jeremy snarled, grabbed the bag and punched the guy right in the stomach. “That isn’t how you talk about a lady. She told me what you did.”

The guy laughed through his wheezes. “Too late for you then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Run don’t walk dude.” With that he shut the door in Jeremy’s face. 

Tracey ran up and gave him a big hug when he came back through the fence. “Thank you! My hero!”

“Your purse, milady.” Jeremy joked. 

Tracey giggled and took her bag. “Thank you, I really do appreciate it.”

“As I said, don’t mention it. That guy is horrible, what did you see in him?”

Tracey’s face clouded over. “He was nice at the start.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Hey, do you need a ride home?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

Jeremy drove Tracey back to her apartment. Before she got out of the car she handed him her phone. “I’d love to see you again some time Jeremy. Would that be okay?”

Jeremy looked at the phone to see it on the new contact page. The name was saved as Knight in Shining Armour. Smiling he typed in the number to his nicer phone instead of a burner. 

“I’ll text you. Thanks again. Have fun with your friend.” Tracey leaned over, kissed his cheek and got out of the car. 

Jeremy waited until she was inside the building before driving to Matt’s. He wore a dopey grin the whole way there. Matt teased him when he found out what had kept him, but it was all good-natured. Jeremy only realized on his way home the next morning that Tracey had kept his sweater.

Tracey did text him. They texted a lot. She had a great sense of humour and both liked sending cat pictures to each other. They arranged to have dinner together. Jeremy was pretty sure it was a date and he was a bit worried it would be too soon after her last break up, but if Tracey didn’t think so then he wouldn’t either. 

He went to pick her up and she looked amazing. Her bleach blonde hair was loose around her shoulders instead of the ponytail she had been wearing when they first met. She was wearing a pretty pink blouse and jeans that looked painted on they fit her so well. 

Jeremy let her pick the place, which ended up being somewhat upscale. He thought the food was a little overpriced for what it was but Tracey seemed to like it and it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it. 

They made the usual small talk. Tracey worked at a large law firm as a clerk. Jeremy had thankfully thought up a suitable cover story so he wouldn’t have to admit he was a gang member. He told her he was a part time bouncer at a seedy bar in town and picked up more cash by running errands through the Favor app. It gave him good excuses to be out late, come home injured, and to work odd hours during the day. 

They didn’t kiss until the third date and by the fifth they had the talk about making things official. The crew quickly found out Jeremy was seeing someone, but he didn’t give them any details. He knew they would look her up and he wanted to avoid anything like that. 

He still had a soft spot for the main crew members, but now he had a girlfriend to think about instead of completely pining for something he couldn’t have. It meant he ended up hanging out with them less but they understood, even if they did give him a good natured hard time. 

One day Jeremy got a text from Geoff asking if he was free. When Jeremy told him he was free until 7 pm all he got in response were a set of coordinates and the instruction to bring a flashlight. 

Jeremy had the foresight to check is flashlight before leaving the apartment only to find out the batteries were dead. He stopped at the store to buy more and showed up to the meeting point a few minutes late.

Geoff was waiting for him in an unremarkable back alley. There was a dumpster and a few fire escapes and the mandatory graffiti and Jeremy couldn’t figure out why they were here. 

“So Mr J, are you up for some reconnaissance?”

“I guess? Where are we going?”

Geoff pointed down at a manhole. 

“Oh hell no, tell me you’re fucking with me.”

“Gavin thinks tunnel connects with one outside the jewellery store we’re planning on robbing. I need you to check out if it is a viable option as a getaway.”

Jeremy gave him an unimpressed look. “So why isn’t Gavin the one doing this?”

“Can you imagine sending him down? Dude will be gagging the whole way. Besides,” Geoff said, ruffling Jeremy’s hair, “it’s gonna be less likely for you to hit your head on any low ceilings.”

“Geoff, if you think I’m going to go get lost in a  _ sewer _ by myself you have another thing coming to you.”

“It isn’t a sewer! It’s a storm drain and it isn’t rainy season so the water level should be really low!” Geoff took in Jeremy’s frown and crossed arms. “You’re not suggesting I should go in?”

“You’re the one asking me! Only a shitty leader asks their employees to do something they won’t do themselves.”

Geoff groaned. “Okay, okay fine. One sec.” He went to his car and pulled a flashlight out of the glove box. “I’ll go in, happy?”

“Ecstatic. Let’s get this over with.”

The two of them were able to move the cover to reveal a ladder going down. Jeremy made Geoff climb down first and then followed. He pulled the cover part way back over the hole so it was still easy to move but not obviously open. 

The sewer was dark. It was damp and it smelled terrible. There was a trough running down the centre with small walkways on either side for access. Geoff pointed them in the direction they needed to go. 

It was eerie being in the tunnels. Their flashlights didn’t do much more than light the path in front of them and their footsteps echoed off the walls. The noises from the streets overhead sounded more ominous in the small space. 

Geoff was particularly jumpy. Any unexpected noise would make him tense up with a small  _ ah _ and he would swing his flashlight around wildly to find the source.

“Geoff! Calm down! It’s probably just rats or something!”

“Bats?! Do you think there’s bats down here?” Geoff’s voice cracked, shining his light at the arched ceiling. 

“No,  _ Rrrrats _ .” Although to be perfectly honest, thought Jeremy, there probably were bats down here. 

They continued down the tunnel, following Geoff’s directions. Another noise reached them that had Geoff jumping out of his skin and clutching at Jeremy. 

“Jesus fuck! Was that a snake?!” 

Jeremy pointed his flashlight at whatever Geoff was pointing at. It was just a stick.

“Geoff, are you okay? Seriously dude. Do you need someone to hold your hand?”

Geoff mumbled something incoherent.

“What was that?”

“I said, it couldn’t hurt.”

Jeremy laughed but took Geoff’s hand. It was cool to the touch and his hands were rough with callouses.

The two of them continued hand in hand until Geoff determined they were in the right spot. Jeremy climbed up the ladder with a camera periscope gadget Gavin had given Geoff. Peeking up through the manhole cover he could see the jewellery store they were planning on robbing.

“Alright, It looks like it does in fact connect. Now let’s get out of here.”

They turned around and walked back through the tunnels. Geoff’s flashlight flickered and died, causing another round of cursing and shrieking. Luckily Jeremy still had batteries from replacing his in his pocket.

“Jeremy! You’re like a boy scout! So prepared! I knew there was a reason I asked you along.”

“I thought it was because I was too short to hit my head.”

“Eh, that too. Uh, wait a sec.”

They had come to a fork Jeremy hadn’t remembered seeing before. It seemed like Geoff didn’t know which one to take either.

“Well we were walking on the right on the way here, so we have to take the left one, right?”

“I swear to god Ramsey, if you get us lost I’m leaving you down here with the snakes.”

“No! Jeremy! You wouldn’t do that to little old me would you?” Geoff clutched his hand tighter.

“You’re an internationally feared crime boss! I’m sure you could figure something out!”

The left tunnel was absolutely the wrong one. It took them a long time to realize they were in a dead end and turn back. 

“I’m just saying, if we had something to mark our way then we wouldn’t get lost.”

“And I’m saying if we have something marking our way and the police follow us it isn’t much of a get aw-AAHHHHH”

A snake slithered away from the light from Geoff’s flashlight. His screams echoed through the tunnel and as he flailed to get away he pushed Jeremy right into the rancid water. It was deeper than he expected and he was soaked from head to foot. He pulled himself out of the water and glared at Geoff.

“Jeremy! I’m sorry! There was a snake.”

“Yeah, I fucking noticed.” Jeremy snapped at Geoff. He was tired of walking, the water was freezing and it stank. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence, but Jeremy let Geoff hold his hand again a few minutes later. It was nice. Comforting in the dark.

They eventually made it to their original entry point. They climbed out and replaced the cover. 

“Whew, I don’t think we can use that after all. All the diamonds in the world couldn’t get me to go back in there.” Geoff said.

“Or… Delegate it to someone else and have the rest of the crew act as distractions while they get away.”

Geoff grinned. “I like the way you think. Now you should probably get cleaned up if you have somewhere to be.”

Jeremy reached in his pocket to check the time on his phone only to find that it wouldn’t turn on. “Goddamnit, my phone got wet! You owe me a new phone you scaredy cat!”

“Nah, that sounds like a you problem.”

“Get me a new phone or I will tell the whole crew about you screaming over a snake.”

“...Deal.”

“Great, now what time is it.”

“Six thirty.”

“Fuck! I’m going to have to cancel my plans. Let me use your phone to call my girlfriend.”

Luckily for Jeremy he knew Tracey’s number off by heart. Memorizing numbers was something he got used to after going through a few burner phones. 

Tracey answered on the first ring. “Hi Tracey, it is Jeremy. Sorry, I had to call you on a client’s phone.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“So, I was doing a Favor job that involved broken plumbing and now I am literally covered in toilet water. My phone got soaked and won’t turn on. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late and I’m still across town.”

“You’re not cancelling on me are you?”

“I’m afraid I have to. All the showers in the world aren’t going to make me stop smelling like shit. Rain-check?”

“Wow, if you don’t want to see me just say so instead of lying to me.”

“What? I’m not lying I-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Tracy hung up the phone to a dumbfounded Jeremy. He walked back over to Geoff and gave him back his phone.

“She get mad at you?”

“Yeah, she didn’t like me cancelling last minute.”

“Buy her flowers. That always works in the movies.”

“Thanks Geoff.” Jeremy said, not trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Today was not going well for him.

“No really, don’t worry about it, she’ll come around once you explain. And hey, if you don’t have plans anymore why don’t you come over. Jack is making chili and that is just what you need after that surprise swim.”

Jeremy went to the Crew’s shared house to talk about the storm drain route and eat Jack’s excellent chili. The next day he bought Tracey a large bouquet of roses and she forgave him once he promised not to take any more plumbing gigs before a date again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think of this addition? 
> 
> I thrive on comments, please let me know what you think!


	11. Flashes, Crashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this explicitly deals with an abusive relationship.

The windshield wipers worked over time in this downpour. Jeremy realized he’d missed these kinds of storms. In the two years he’d spent in Los Santos it had never rained like this. It was soothing. Cathartic to see the turbulence he was feeling inside expressed so openly in the sky. 

He saw the yellow reflectors too late to turn his car with the bend in the road. His car skidded across the opposite lane and he crashed into the guardrail. The metal barrier snapped and he was flying. 

Suspended in the storm he saw lightning split the sky around him and it brought with it flashes of memory

+++++

It started like this: Tracey and her roommate had a falling out. Tracey was too afraid to live with this roommate so she had shown up at Jeremy’s place in the pouring rain with just a suitcase. Of course he let her stay! And after he had gone to help her get the rest of her stuff it was just easier to let her move in. 

Jeremy hadn’t thought it through. How hard it would be to keep his criminal lifestyle a secret. Tracey knew he was keeping something from her, and unluckily for him, she saw him get picked up by Jack once and she jumped to a very logical conclusion.

See, Jeremy hadn’t thought to tell Tracey beforehand that  _ Jack _ was in fact a woman. She had assumed he was carpooling with a male coworker and was upset when she saw him get in a sports car with a smoking hot redhead. 

Yeah, that took some explaining.

She obviously didn’t fully trust him, and he couldn’t blame her because he was hiding something, just not an affair. She demanded access to his phone. He had Gavin set up something to show her that wasn’t an incriminating burner. 

+++++

He told Tracey he got a new job as a bouncer in an exclusive hotel club right in the heart of Los Santos. She had been teasing him that she’d show up at his work and he couldn’t have her finding out he didn’t work at a bar. 

One day he came home so drained from a heist that he forgot to put away his take of the cash. He left it lying in the front hall and crashed hard. Tracey woke up before him to cook him breakfast (because she was a fantastic girlfriend who did sweet things like that for him). 

She saw the cash. 

He tried to explain he usually got his pay after they cashed out. He tried to joke that the servers had it worse with their tips. He tried to say it was easier for the owners than depositing it and paying it digitally. 

She didn’t believe him. 

She didn’t tell him that, but Jeremy knew. She would joke that he must be a stripper or a hooker to make that kind of cash at night. She would remind him to wear a condom before his ‘shifts’ and ask him where his fishnets were. She tried to make it sound like a joke.

Jeremy knew it wasn’t.

+++++

Tracey  _ hated _ Gavin and Michael. He tried taking her out to meet them but they were… Well, they were Gavin and Michael. Loud, rowdy. They told embarrassing stories about Jeremy. 

Tracey thought they were bad influences on Jeremy. That he could do so much better if he didn’t see them. He didn’t want her to think he was sneaking around on her so it was so much easier to make excuses to the Lads about why he couldn’t see them.

He wasn’t able to hang out with Jack either after the mix up with her name. 

He didn’t see the crew much out of work at all really. Not anymore. 

+++++

He was woken up late one night with an emergency alert on his phone. He tried to explain that he had to go in for work, but Tracey didn’t understand why he had to leave in the middle of the night. 

He’d gotten used to the yelling a while ago.

He tried to put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her, to calm her down. He didn’t understand what had happened at first, but the stinging in his eye was hard to ignore. 

He would never forget the way she spat the words  _ Don’t touch me _ .

_ Look what you made me do _ .

_ I hope your client gives you a good fuck, you whore. _

When Gavin commented on the black eye the next day he said one of the thugs they had taken out the night before got a lucky hit. 

+++++

Jeremy was glad the crew never realized where the bruises were coming from. Tracey was a beautiful, petite blonde woman. They never thought it could be her. He never had to admit it. 

+++++

It wasn’t that she was a bad person. She had just been with some terrible men. She’d told him about her exes. They were all monsters. They took advantage of her and treated her like dirt. 

Jeremy thought Tracey deserved the world. 

He didn’t want to be like one of those men who had hurt her in the past. He wanted to treat her like the queen she was. 

He just wished he’d stop making so many mistakes.

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

+++++

His worst fear came true during a heist. 

It was chaos. The crew had just pulled off another successful bank robbery and had gotten into a vicious shootout with the police. Jeremy was just getting into a car when a camera flash caught his eye. 

He looked across the street to see a familiar face lowering a phone. 

In the confusion that followed he lost sight of him, but he knew who he’d seen. 

Tony.  

Joey’s best friend.

+++++

Jeremy didn’t go back to the apartment. He scribbled a note and dropped it in a mailbox on the way out of town. His phones were in pieces on the road behind him.

He thought about telling the crew. He didn’t think they’d care. It wasn’t like he’d been there for them for a while now. 

They wouldn’t care if he disappeared.

He just needed to leave.

+++++

He was pretty sure the same black car had been following him for a while now. He turned onto the mountain path. In this weather he could probably lose them in the twists and turns. He pushed the car faster to get away. The rain made the roads slippery.

The windshield wipers worked over time in this downpour. Jeremy realized he’d missed these kinds of storms. In the two years he’d spent in Los Santos it had never rained like this. It was soothing. Cathartic to see the turbulence he was feeling inside expressed so openly in the sky. 

He saw the yellow reflectors too late to turn his car with the bend in the road. His car skidded across the opposite lane and he crashed into the guardrail. The metal barrier snapped and he was flying. 

Lightning flashed.

Jeremy crashed.

And the world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so different from how I normally write because I *hate writing angst*  
> If I had to flesh these ideas out and develop them properly this chapter was never going to get written. Sorry if it sucks, it just needed to come out so I could move to the next part of the story!


	12. The Boston Mob

Jeremy woke from his dream with a jolt. He’d drempt he’d been falling. Relief flooded through him when he realized he’d been dreaming. It was a bad nightmare. He tried to recall it. Driving through a storm. Familiar faces in the crowd. A chase across state lines. Metal squealing as it snapped.

Jeremy tried to turn over but pain flared up the left side of his body. He gasped in shock. He was much more awake now and saw the red numbers of a digital clock where there should have been light seeping around his window.

He tried sitting up but he couldn’t move his arm. He heard noise behind him and a light snapped on. As fast as he could through the pain he turned to see where he was and who was with him. 

He took in the features that screamed motel room without even realizing, because staring back at him was a face he never thought he’d see again.

Joey.

The other man broke into a wide grin. “Jay! How are you feelin’ pal?”

When Jeremy didn’t answer his smile faded a little. He stood up from the other bed and took a cautious  step towards Jeremy. 

“Jeremy? Are you okay?”

“How? How are you here?”

Joey chuckled and sat down on Jeremy’s bed. “The best rehab mob money could buy.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Jeremy, you just drove off the road in a storm. If I was gonna kill you I had the perfect chance to make it look like an accident.” He patted Jeremy’s knee over the covers. “I wouldn’t have patched you up and let you sleep in a shitty motel just to kill you later.”

Jeremy’s head hurt, but that logic seemed to make sense. He blinked stupidly at Joey, still trying to make sense of how he was seeing him again after years apart.

The boy stood, and said, “Sleep for a bit longer and we’ll catch up in the morning, okay?”

Jeremy nodded and he slipped away before Joey had the chance to turn off the lights. 

+++++

The next morning Jeremy was still disoriented when he woke. He didn’t know where he was and his whole left side was sore and bruised. There were cuts all over his arms and chest. This time he managed to push himself into a sitting position and his head throbbed from the effort. His neck was so stiff he could barely turn his head, but he spotted Joey sitting at the tiny table in one of the uncomfortable chairs all motel chains were able to find. 

Joey looked up from his phone and turned to Jeremy with a smile. “You’re up! How are you feeling today?”

“Sore. What happened?”

Joey got up and pulled a bottle of aspirin and a water bottle from a bag. “You drove off the road. Our fault, we should have figured you’d react badly to seeing us, shoulda found another way to talk to you. Anyway, your shoulder was dislocated and you’ve got a nasty bruise from the seat belt. Looks like you hit your head on the wheel or the airbag got you in the face. If you didn’t come to this morning we were going to take you to the hospital. Trust me, I know how bad a concussion can be.”

Jeremy swallowed the pills around a large lump of guilt in his throat. “Joe, I’m so sorry. I-”

“Hey, none of that. It wasn’t your fault. I was being stupid and reckless. You did everything you could to stop me from getting hurt too bad and I was too proud to take the out. It was a stupid accident and nothing more.”

“But I-”

Joey interrupted again. “No, Jeremy I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. You told me I wasn’t ready for the ring and I didn’t listen. I was so cocky and stupid I thought I was going to show everyone how great I was. I had something to prove and my arrogance made it so I can never fight again. As soon as the doctors said I was finally good to go I started looking for you so I could apologize to you.”

“To me? But I’m the one who knocked you out! I put you in a coma!” Jeremy had pushed the guilt he felt to the back of his mind for so long, but now he had to confront it again, and to the person he had hurt too. Tears were threatening to fall from his eyes.

“A freak accident. Someone recorded the fight, I watched it over and over. I know you gave me lots of chances to tap out, I know that hit woulda just knocked me out for a few minutes. It was bad luck that I hit the only part of the ring where the padding had been ripped off. No one blames you.”

“Your father…”

“Oh, he had to act like the tough mob boss, run you out of town, but he never really wanted you dead. That bounty was only on you for three months, and everyone in Boston knew not to take him up on it. He wants you back too, he just knew you’d keep running if you thought we were coming after you. He always said you were a smart one.”

“And you’re not going to kill me?”

“No! God no! I just wanted to say sorry. I was an idiot and I got myself hurt, and because of that you had to leave everything behind you. I want you to come home, Jay.”

The door to the motel room opening spared Jeremy from answering Joey. It was Tony, carrying a MacDonald’s bag and a tray of coffee. 

“Hey man! Welcome to the land of the living! We were worried about you!”

The three of them ate breakfast sandwiches on the motel beds and got Jeremy caught up in everything he’d missed. Joey had woken up from the coma about a year ago. He’d done some pretty intense rehab and physio since then. A couple months ago the doctors gave him the all clear to get around on his own so Joey had decided to start looking for Jeremy. It was a news story about a heist the Fakes had done where they broke onto a billionaire’s yacht that got them on the right track. Jeremy had gotten his jacket wet so he’d removed it and the security footage picked up his tattoos. Tony recognized the Dooley crest and the two of them made their way to Los Santos to look for him. They had been there a month waiting for the Fakes to do something to see if their guess was right. 

“Oh shit!”

Joey paused in his story. “What’s wrong?”

“The Fakes! The crew is going to be wondering where I am when I didn’t meet up with them last night!”

Joey and Tony shared a look. It was Tony who spoke. “Uhhh. It’s been more than a night buddy. You’ve been out for two days.”

“What? Two  _ days _ ?!”

“Yeah, you robbed that bank Wednesday afternoon and crashed Wednesday night. It’s Saturday morning now.”

Jeremy’s stomach dropped like he’d swallowed a lead weight. Two days of being missing from the crew. Jack was going to kill him herself. It had seemed like a good idea at the time to run away without telling anyone, but Jeremy knew how badly he would have taken it if one of the crew disappeared without a trace after a job. They probably thought he got got. 

Joey held out his phone. “Is there someone you need to call to tell that you’re alright? A girlfriend who’d worry?”

Oh  _ no _ . 

Tracey.

Jeremy hadn’t even thought about her. She’d probably gotten his note by now. God, she was going to be so  _ angry _ . Jeremy couldn’t think about that right now. That could be a future Jeremy problem. Right now he needed to call the crew before they figured out what happened and hunted them down. He nodded and Joey handed him his phone. He and Tony left with the excuse of needing to get gas. 

Jeremy stared at the phone in his hand. He was too scared to call any of them. He knew whoever picked up would yell at him for being so stupid. Geoff was out because he was sure to shout. Jack would be worse because she would be mad  _ and _ worried and Jeremy didn’t want to hear how upset he’d made her. Michael was infamous for his temper and volume. Gavin would go into shrill hysterics. Ryan, while quiet, had a temper on him just as bad as Michael and Jeremy couldn’t deal with any of that right now. He needed someone who wouldn’t get too mad at him. 

Taking a deep breath, he dialed the memorized number. It rang a few times before he heard the quiet “Hello?”

“Hey Matt.”

“Jeremy! What the fuck! Are you okay? Where the hell are you? Everyone is looking everywhere for you!”

“So, long story short I’m an idiot-”

“Tell me something I don’t know, like if you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I am. Well, I got into a car accident and was unconscious for a few days, which is why I didn’t call, but yeah, I’m okay.”

“ _ What the fuck Jeremy! _ Where are you!” 

“Uhm. I’m in a motel somewhere.”

“What do you mean you’re in a motel somewhere?”

“Maybe if you shut up I’ll get to tell you!”

“Don’t talk like that to me, do you have  _ any idea _ how worried we all are?”

“I know. I’m sorry, okay?”

He heard Matt take a deep breath, and when his friend spoke again his voice had gone back to the apathetic tone Jeremy was used to. 

“Just tell me what the fuck happened Jerem.”

“I saw someone from my old gang, so I ran. I know how stupid it sounds now, but I just ran okay? I didn’t know how they had tracked it me down and I got the heroic idea not to let anyone else get involved.”

“You’re a fucking idiot man.”

“Yeah, didn’t I say that already.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, I guess you did. So are you in a safe place now?”

“Yeah, turns out the mob isn’t trying to kill me. It was actually Joey who came to find me. He’s okay.”

“No shit!” Matt knew about what happened with Joey, all the Fake’s did. “So what, you guys kissed and made up and now you’re on your way back?”

Jeremy hesitated. “Well…”

“What’s up?”

“They want me to go back to Boston with them.”

“Oh. Are you going to?”

Jeremy started picking at the thin quilt on the bed. “I think so. I haven’t seen my family since the accident.”

“Oh. I forgot about that. Sorry.”

“No, that’s fine. Matt, could you do me a favour?”

“You want me to stop Jack from hunting you down?”

Jeremy grimaced. “No, I wouldn’t ask you to do something so dangerous. Could you just check on Tracey? I sent her a note but…”

“Ah” Matt sounded off. “I, uh, did go around to your place after you went missing. She’s, uh… She’s taking it really well, I don’t think you need to worry.”

Jeremy chewed on his lip. Tracey was good at hiding how she felt around strangers, but when it was just the two of them she would show her emotions a lot more. She was probably pissed. 

“But could you just check on her? Let her know I’m alright but I don’t know when I’ll be back?”

“I will. But fair warning, I’m going to send this number to the group chat so prepare for the crew blowing up this phone.”

Jeremy groaned. “You’re a monster.”

“You know you deserve it. Time to face the music Mr. Run Away.”

“I guess I do. Thanks Matt.”

“I’m glad you’re okay Jeremy. Don’t stay in Boston too long alright? We have a Destiny raid to finish.”

They said good bye and Jeremy hung up the phone. He noted the time and waited. It took three minutes for the first call to come through. Unsurprisingly it was Gavin. He was put on speaker phone so the whole crew could yell at him at once. It seemed like Matt had filled them in on what had happened before giving them the number. 

After the initial yelling stopped it took them another 15 minutes to lecture him on how much of an idiot he was and how he should have told them what was happening instead of running away. 

Jeremy was touched. The crew was important to him and he loved them all, but hearing how much they cared wasn’t something he was used to. They made him promise to come back, to not stay in Boston, and he said he would try his best not to stay away too long. 

It took another two days to drive to Boston. It was a rough ride for Jeremy, he was pretty sure he had whiplash and his neck and back hurt even after a short time in the car. He took painkillers and mostly slept, but he was always glad to sleep in a real bed at the end of the day.

He had to get a gas station phone to stay in touch with the crew. Gavin texted him a lot. Sending pictures of cats he would see on the street or memes he thought were funny. Jeremy appreciated it, he was glad the crew weren’t too mad at his little disappearing act.

He was too scared to call or text Tracey. He knew he’d hurt her but he couldn’t face her yet.

It was wonderful seeing his family and friends again. He had a tearful reunion with his parents and siblings. His whole family was deep in the mob business, so they knew why he left, but they were so glad to hear he was okay and doing well for himself in Los Santos. 

He was nervous meeting Joey’s dad, his old boss, again. Don Donnelly was a harsh man who never tolerated weakness or disloyalty. But the reunion with his old gang went surprisingly well. Don was stoic, but he said he was glad Jeremy was back and had enough sense not to get himself killed while he was away. 

He stayed for a month. The crew never stopped texting him about what he was missing in Los Santos. He’d get pictures of the Lads’ hijinks from Jack and hints about future heists from Geoff. Gavin still sent him any funny picture or video he found on reddit. Michael would ask if he’d seen any of the stereotypical North Eastern things. He was from Jersey so he knew what it was like. Ryan would send pictures of his work, exploded cars and cops lit up from a flare and tell him he missed his battle buddy. 

It was nice, but it made Jeremy miss seeing them in person every day. The mob didn’t have feel like a family the way the Fake’s did, which was odd since it was made up of families when the Fake’s weren’t. There was also so much relationship drama. People breaking up or cheating or bouncing in and out of on again off again relationships. It was hard to keep up with who was sleeping with who and who wasn’t speaking to each other. But boy, did people try. Jeremy wondered how they ever got anything done with the amount they gossiped about each other. 

In the end it was Donnelly who made Jeremy realize he couldn’t stay. His former boss called him into his office one day with an offer. He wanted Jeremy back in the ring. Jeremy thanked him for the opportunity, but he told him he couldn’t do it. He gave the excuse about still being shaken up from what happened to Joey, but he knew that was a lie. He’d spared with Michael and his other crew members enough times to know he wasn’t afraid of the ring. But the thought of going back to that life, of staying with this group, that is what scared him. He missed home, his home in Los Santos. He missed the Fakes. 

He told his family he was heading back. His mother smiled and gave him a hug. “I knew you would sooner or later. I know you’ve got a special lady waiting for you with way you smile at your phone all the time. You shouldn’t keep her waiting too long. Anyone who makes you smile like that is worth keeping.” 

Jeremy blushed a deep red. He hadn’t told his family about Tracey. He was still too scared to talk to her after what he’d done. The truth was that it was the crew he was texting. He couldn’t exactly tell his mother that, so he smiled and said something vague, avoiding promising to bring her for home for Thanksgiving. 

He decided not to tell the crew he was coming. After all, he hadn’t told them he was leaving. As soon as the plane touched down he disobeyed the no electronics rule and sent a text to the group chat.

_ Lil J: Anyone busy right now? _

_ Gavvy Wavvy: Swimmy bevs with Boi!  _

_ Gavvy Wavvy: Wish you could join us! _

_ Lil J: That does sound fun. Too bad you’re busy, I was gonna ask for a ride from the airport.  _

When he stepped out of the terminal he saw a flashy limo waiting for him. He was quickly swallowed by a big group hug. The whole crew had turned out to meet him. He found out they had already invited everyone to a welcome back party at their place. 

It was good to be home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well who expected that to happen when the mob caught up with Jeremy? 
> 
> Plus I bet everyone is excited to see the touching, romantic reunion with Tracey!
> 
> Let me know what you think so far! I thrive on comments! They actually help me get the chapters out faster, hint hint.


	13. Homecoming & Horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gone for so long! To make up for it, this was actually supposed to be two chapters, but you're getting both now! Yay!
> 
> Thanks to people who commented after so long of no updates, you really pushed me to keep working on this!

Jeremy took a deep breath as the door closed behind the last party goer. The noise level had dropped noticeably now that most people were gone. Now it was just him and the five homeowners left at his welcome back party. He watched for a minute as the responsible ones started cleaning some of the mess so it wouldn’t be too horrible tomorrow, mostly putting away food and wiping spilled drinks. The irresponsible ones had disappeared to pass out in their rooms. 

He waited until no one was watching before slipping his hand into the bowl of keys by the door and taking the set for a plain sedan. The Fakes had told him to stay the night in one of the rooms downstairs, but there was something he needed to do, and he had just enough liquid courage in his system to do it. 

He needed to talk to Tracey. He owed her an explanation and an apology. He knew she would be mad, but he deserved it for abandoning her like that. Maybe if he showed her how sorry he was she would forgive him. 

Jeremy made sure to close the door soundlessly behind him. The car blinked to life as it was unlocked and he reached to open the handle, practicing the words he would use to plead his case for the millionth time since leaving. 

He’d tell her how much he loved her, how scared he was someone would hurt her. He’d tell her he left to keep her safe. She didn’t know about his criminal activities and he was still debating if he should explain that. At least that way she would know exactly the kind of man he was and decide if she could ever take him back. 

He thought about how angry she could get. The worst was when he’d had to stay the night at a safe house and he couldn’t tell her. A thug had tried to choke him with a piece of rope in the fight so he had bruises around his neck. She’d thought they were hickeys, that he’d spent the night with ‘some tramp’. The bruises he’d gotten from her were worse than the one’s he’d gotten in the fight.

Jeremy jolted as a hand landed on his shoulder. He flinched into the car, picturing Tracey’s furious eyes, but instead he met Geoff’s tired but kind ones. 

“Goin’ somewhere?” His voice was soft, curious.

“I was just…” Jeremy trailed off, he realized he didn’t know how long he’d spent staring off into space, hand on the door of a car that didn’t even belong to him. “I wanted to go see Tracey.”

Geoff’s expression turned from soft to hard in a flash before settling on worried. “It’s late and you’ve been drinking. Don’t go anywhere tonight.”

Jeremy shook his head, stepping out from under Geoff’s hand. “I have to do this now, I won’t have the courage later. I’ve already been gone too long. She’s going to be so mad-”

“What does she do when she’s mad?” Geoff cut him off and suddenly Jeremy knew that Geoff  _ knew _ . That he’d figured out how weak Jeremy was, how pathetic. Shame flooded through him.

“Nothing! She doesn’t do nothing.”

“Jeremy. Please-”

“Just leave it Geoff, this isn’t your problem!”

“But it  _ is _ my car and I don’t want it wrapped around a tree. We can talk about this in the  _ morning _ .” Geoff snatched the keys out of Jeremy’s hands and steered him back into the house. 

A light was on downstairs and Geoff lead him towards it. Jack was in one of the offices that had a daybed for when one of the techie people worked too late on a project and needed somewhere to nap. Jack had clearly just finished putting clean sheets on the bed, and she nodded to towels on the desk. 

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“Any time. Good night”

Jack and Geoff went upstairs and Jeremy flopped onto the bed, exhausted.

The next morning Jeremy stumbled towards the bathroom. He desperately needed to take a piss and brushing his teeth would be fantastic. When he stumbled out he noticed someone was there playing minecraft on the giant flat screen.

He peeked over the couch to see Matt hunched over a controller, a box of doughnuts on the table in front of him. He looked up at Jeremy.

“Yo man, sup?”

“What are you doing here so early?” Jeremy flopped on the couch and grabbed a doughnut. He wasn’t so hung over that he couldn’t enjoy a sugary treat.

“Geoff asked me to talk to you.”

Jeremy groaned, remembering the scene last night. “Well that’s terrifying.”

Matt shrugged, pausing his game and putting down his controller. The knot in Jeremy’s stomach tightened, this must be serious.

“You know how you asked me to check in on Tracey?”

“Yeah?”

“When I tried to get in touch with her, a man answered the door.”

“Okay?” Jeremy wasn’t sure where he was going with this. Matt looked pained.

“Jeremy, Tracey is seeing someone else.”

Jeremy’s blood ran cold. Surely she hadn’t moved on that quickly. But he had left her, she must have turned to a friend for comfort. Surely that is all it was. “When did that start? Do you know?”

Matt looked down and twisted his hands before answering. “A while.”

“How long?” A pause. Realization hit. “Before I left?”

“Before she even moved in with you, dude. Gavin found out and looked her up. They’ve been together and working as scammers for years. I’m sorry.”

Jeremy felt pieces of himself shattering, leaving him numb. Years. He’d been with Tracey for a year and a half. Lived with her for a year. Years. He couldn’t believe it. Tracey said she loved him. Tracey was always so hurt when she thought he was with someone else.

But Matt wouldn’t lie to him about this. And if the information came from Gavin then it was probably true. Oh god, Jeremy realized, Gavin knew. Geoff knew. Last night when he was leaving, Geoff knew. They probably all did. He ate the last of his doughnut but he felt empty inside. 

“I - I need to think about this.” Jeremy stammered, standing up and retreating to his room.

Jeremy was devastated, but it was mixed with an odd feeling of relief. He loved Tracey, he did, but he could acknowledge that he was afraid of her too, and that wasn’t supposed to happen in a healthy relationship. 

He ended up in Matt’s spare room for a couple weeks until he could move into a new apartment. This one was much nicer than the one he and Tracey had shared, but he didn’t have to worry about hiding from the mob anymore and working with the Fakes paid well enough that he could get himself something nice.

He recruited Gavin to help break into his old apartment when no one was home to pick up all of the stuff he had left behind. He caught Gavin doing annoying things around the apartment, like removing all of the lightbulbs, including the one in the fridge, and didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop. He gave his notice 60 day to the landlord on his way out, the apartment was never in Tracey’s name after all and he didn’t need to pay her rent. 

Jeremy knew the crew were itching to get back at Tracey, but he knew it wouldn’t make him feel better. Ruining her life wouldn’t make him happy. A big part of him still cared for her and wanted to give her all the happiness life could offer her. He found out that someone hadn’t listened to him and that one of their dirty cops had received a tip about her and her partner, turns out they had multiple warrants out for their arrest. The last he heard she was scheduled for trial for theft, credit card fraud, and tax evasion. Her partner had skipped bail and left town, abandoning her to the criminal justice system. A small part of Jeremy was happy about how everything turned out. 

Jeremy was glad to be back with the Fakes. Their next project was a casino heist but they were doing it with  _ flare _ . In a few months the casino was planning a horse race to appeal to the Los Santos elite who wanted everyone to think they had old-money class and sophistication. Jack and Michael would be there betting on the race, everyone in the business knew those two were notorious gamblers, usually on car races but horses weren’t a stretch. It didn’t matter if they won or lost, because the rest of the crew would be there to drain the money out anyway. 

It was the perfect opportunity for the crew. They could have their thieves pick people’s pockets, their hackers siphon money and the gamblers’ personal info, and their con artists would be taking ‘off the books’ bets and swindling people out of their money. The support crew would be needed to monitor the event, to make sure no one got caught picking the wrong pocket. 

There was a lot of prep to do, everything from bribing the casino workers to look the other way on the day of the event to researching what encryption would be in place to hide the transactions. They even needed to make sure no one was tampering with the horses and jockeys. Sabotage was a real concern, Los Santos had too many unethical people who had no qualms about injuring animals to win a few more dollars. That was Jeremy’s role in the heist prep.

Jeremy spent his days skulking around the stables, making sure no shady characters slipped in to cause mischief. He wasn’t the only one. From the Fakes, himself, Ryan, and Michael took turns watching, but there were others hanging around too. Hired muscle from people with stakes in the race. It was also a good opportunity to watch the horses train. The race track was in the open air, and try as they might, there was no way to hide the horses’ practice runs from lurkers like Jeremy. 

What surprised Jeremy most is that Gavin would often drop by and spend time with him. Gavin turned up one day in a cable van and work permits for the zone, allowing Jeremy to pretend he was actually working in the area instead of loitering. But Gavin would park himself in the back and work on his encryption. When Jeremy asked why he wasn’t doing it in the office Gavin said it was quieter out here, less distractions. Jeremy didn’t believe him, because Gavin himself was such a distraction. He was very talkative when he worked. It was nice though. Stake outs could get boring very quickly.

As nice as it was to have Gavin around, it very quickly reminded Jeremy of a problem he’d thought he’d gotten over: his crush on the other man. It was just too nice spending time with Gavin. He was relaxing to be around one-on-one like this. Gavin had always been what Jeremy could only describe as flirty. And now when he was trying to bother Jeremy at work he was exceptionally so. Jeremy had successfully ignored his crush on not just Gavin, but all members for the crew for over a year now. He had to keep reminding himself that Gavin was just joking around with him. He was as off-limits now as he was when he first joined the crew. 

Gavin was very complimentary, but it made Jeremy uncomfortable. He had to bite his tongue a few times to stop himself from saying  _ no I’m not _ to him whenever he said something wildly untrue. Because he wasn’t smart, or funny or anything else Gavin told him. He was just dumb muscle. Good with a gun but hardly worth mentioning in a group like the Fakes. He was just someone who made mistake after mistake. He knew that. He didn’t know why Gavin thought it was funny to joke around like Jeremy was something special. He couldn’t understand what the payoff was for the other man. 

It was only three days before the event that Jeremy found out his role for the big day. He was going to be acting as back up for Gavin, who would be the the one to hack into the casino’s systems from the inside while the rest of the support crew would be working from the outside.

Jeremy was mildly nervous about his role. Not because of the security at the casino, they would be stretched thin covering the event, but about Gavin. Jeremy had to reassure himself that Gavin was a professional who would never compromise a heist just to tease Jeremy. Gavin was probably going to ignore Jeremy all together, or treat him like a shadow. All Jeremy had to do was make sure he wasn’t too distracted by the man to do his job. 

That sounded like something Jeremy could do.

*****

Jeremy had worn a lot of outfits in his time as crew muscle. Especially because the Fakes seemed to like themed costumes. His regular Rimmy Tim outfit was intentionally outlandish, so he really didn’t get an opinion on crazy attire. But the clothes Gavin had put out for him for the casino heist was something else entirely. He’d expected a white button down with a black jacket, standard bodyguard stuff. This was…

Well it was nice. A button down shirt with a swirling blue and green pattern. There was a stylish blue blazer and matching pants. There was even a little handkerchief thing that went in the breast pocket with the same pattern as the shirt. Jeremy understood now why Gavin had asked him to trim his beard and ‘look sharp.’ And Jeremy had to admit, Gavin had made a good choice. All the clothes were clearly tailored to perfection. The colours looked nice against Jeremy’s skin. 

There was a fancy blue sports car waiting for him to use to pick Gavin up. The hackers were all in a van a few blocks away to get a better signal. Gavin hopped out with a wave to his teammates before getting in the car with Jeremy.

They made it to the event in good time. Most people were already there and starting to move to their seats, but the event hadn’t started yet. Jeremy handed the keys to a valet, someone he recognized from the crew’s support team. He was sure part of the plan involved either stealing or bugging the cars, so whoever this was would have a lot on their plate today. 

Jeremy jumped as a hand slid into the crook of his elbow. He looked up to see Gavin’s smirking face. 

“Care for a drink, luv?” he asked cheekily.

Jeremy stuttered out a “sure” and they went off to the bar.

There was a crowd, but the bartenders were getting through it quickly. Gavin ended up with a moscow mule and Jeremy had whiskey on the rocks. Gavin slung his free hand over Jeremy’s shoulders and steered him though the mass of people. 

“Uh, Gav?”

Gavin hummed in reply, his eyes scanning the crowd. 

“Are you sure we should be standing like this?”

“Like what, luv?”

There was that pet name again, doing funny things to Jeremy’s heart. He had seen it in text messages enough to know how Gavin was spelling it. That he wasn’t saying  _ love _ .

“You know,” Jeremy gestured to the arm on his shoulder, “That doesn’t make me look very professional. People don’t usually touch their body guard so much.”

“You aren’t a body guard though.”

“I’m not?” Wasn’t that the whole reason he was with Gavin? To be his back up?

“Nope, today you’re just my partner.” With that news Gavin pressed a kiss to Jeremy’s temple. 

The kiss combined with Gavin calling him his partner had Jeremy reeling. He must have had a ferocious blush, but with all that blood in his head he couldn’t come up with a single response.

“Nah, Lil J, I’m an unimportant little nobody. If I had a body guard people might pay too much attention to me.”

That at least made sense to Jeremy. Gavin had been a risky choice for this job because he was known to most of the criminal underground. Today though, he was dressed similarly to Jeremy (who tried not to notice how well the colours brought out Gavin’s eyes) instead of his flashy costume. A member of the B-team could hack the computer just as well, if not better, than Gavin, but he wasn’t really hacking, just allowing a wireless connection for others to do the hacking. The job still required someone with good hacking skills, but also the people skills and charisma to sneak around without drawing attention in a large party. 

While they were mingling around Jeremy realized what a good fit both of them were for the role. Neither of them looked like their usual selves, and Jeremy had been away for a while in Boston meaning that, expect for the goons around the stables, most criminals may not recognize his face right away. He also realized that Gavin was right and that they had a much higher chance of passing through security’s control as a normal looking couple than a rich guy escorted by a bodyguard.

Michael and Jack were the only two from the crew who were supposed to get recognized. It would be more surprising if the Fakes didn’t show up to an event like this, especially with their history of gambling. Ryan and Geoff were actually across town not subtly checking out a bank in a rival crew’s territory. In theory they would be seen by the right people to make the criminals think the Fakes were working on a different job, instead of infiltrating the casino. 

There were a bunch of minor events before the big race. Jeremy and Gavin didn’t have anything to do but scope the place out and socialize until after the starting gun sounded. Then they had a limited window where all bets were placed but the race wasn’t over. Michael and Jack were to keep them posted on when they should slip away and when they should activate the signal. 

That meant there were several long hours to spend with just the two of them acting like a couple. They gambled a bit, placed a few bets, but mostly ate and dranks (not too much, just enough to blend in). Gavin was taking the couple thing very seriously, never really taking his hands off Jeremy, giving him affectionate kisses. And Jeremy, just this once, while he had the excuse, joined in. He indulged it. He made the other laugh and didn’t try to hide his goofy grin when he did. He stared at Gavin like he had hung the moon in the sky. He put his arm around his waist and tugged him close like he had any right to be possessive. 

He pretended to the point where he forgot it wasn’t real. And it was amazing. Because Gavin let him. Gavin looked at him with stars in his eyes. Gavin laughed too long and too loud at his jokes. Gavin squeezed his arm or his hand whenever their eyes met. Jeremy ignored the voice in his head that told him he’d regret this tomorrow. 

They were on the balcony overlooking the main floor of the casino when Gavin’s watch lit up with the message from Jack about people taking their seats for the race. It was time to get into position. They had been taking silly selfies with as their excuse to be up there at all. They started to get a little handsy with each other. Any security looking up at them will assume they disappeared for more privacy. 

Jeremy was taking his cues about what was allowed from Gavin. Where he could touch, how far he could go. Soon Gavin was taking his hand and leading him giggling to a door down the hall. He pressed Jeremy against it and dropped to his knees. Jeremy took a great effort to bring his mind away from what he really wanted to happen. 

Gavin pulled out a long wire with a hook on the end and slipped it under the closed door. Jeremy kept watch down the hall. There was a click and the door swung open, Gavin was able to turn the bolt from the outside so there would be no trace of a break in. The two of them slipped inside.

They were in the IT support office. Gadgets and devices littered the surfaces and a number of monitors were on the desk. The crew had discovered that, while most of the money transactions were stored on a heavily guarded server in the basement, the tech guy had set up a secret connection so he could fix the glitchy old racks without leaving his office. All Gavin needed to do was plant a wireless connection into the guys laptop and let the support team do the rest. 

There were a few minutes where Gavin needed to break into the man’s computer. He must have been a rookie or complacent, because his password was written on a sticky note behind his wall calendar. 

Everything was in place with extra time to spare when they got the next signal from Jack. Gavin turned on the wifi stick and sat back to let the support crew do their thing. 

Gavin turned to look at Jeremy and he wasn’t sure if he should be afraid of the look on the other’s face. 

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Now what?” he asked.

“Well,” Gavin said, stalking closer. “We came here looking for a cheeky snog, yeah?” He was in Jeremy’s personal space now. He put a hand under Jeremy’s chin and tipped his head up to look him in the eyes. “How ‘bout we look the part.”

Jeremy wasn’t sure who moved first. His mind completely blanked the moment Gavin’s lips met his. Gavin’s hand moved to the back of his head, keeping him close while his other settled on Jeremy’s waist. Jeremy responded by bringing his hands up to Gavin’s back. 

He doesn’t know how it happened, but Gavin ended up sat on the desk, Jeremy slotted between his legs. Gavin’s hands were on his ass and when the other man squeezed Jeremy’s hips thrust forwards automatically. At the same moment Gavin’s timer pinged. 

Gavin broke the kiss and started removing all traces of them from the computer. Jeremy went to check the door, face burning in shame. He prayed Gavin hadn’t been able to tell how aroused he was by a simple make out. 

It was time to get back to the party. Gavin hung his arm around Jeremy’s shoulders as they made their way back down the stairs. Jeremy was stiff and awkward. He’d let things get to far and was starting to freak out about it. Gavin grabbed them both drinks and they turned their attention to the scoreboards.

Turns out, the horse Michael and Jack were betting on had won. Baby Dragon came first in a close call with Tomoooooooo (AKA Tom8o). It wasn’t necessary that the crew had money on the winning horse, but it would sure help when the casino found out all of their money was missing. No one would blame the Fakes when they were the ones making a stink about collecting their prize. 

Gavin lingered for a bit, just enough to see official looking people rushing around and whispering in people’s ears, before deciding it was time to make their exit. Jeremy was much less talkative and social than before, he was too busy beating himself up for letting himself get carried away with make believe. Gavin didn’t seem to notice, thankfully. He was too caught up in the success of the day. 

The valet returned Jeremy’s borrowed car quickly, and before he knew it they were leaving the event. 

They met up at the warehouse. Michael and Jack were still at the casino. The owners were plying all the big winners with drinks and food while delaying telling them their winnings had disappeared. 

Jeremy, along with Geoff, Ryan and a number of people from the support team, started setting up for the celebration they were going to have. It was still early to get a real idea of how good their take was, but B-team were estimating a few million. Gavin had disappeared to help the other hackers drain the attendees accounts before any security was triggered. 

It was a few hours later before Michael and Jack showed up. The party was already well underway and they only added to the chaos. They didn’t need to catch up, having gotten drunk on the casino’s expensive champagne. 

Jeremy had been acting as a DJ for a few hours and had been enjoying watching his coworkers attempts at drunken dancing. Around 2 am he was relieved from his post by Larry so he went to join the corner where the Gents were sprawled out on comfortable couches. Ryan and Geoff were sipping diet cokes, and Jack had been slowly sobering up with water. Jeremy felt like he matched their levels of inebriation as he was too busy spinning tracks to get super drunk, and at this time of night it was too late to start.

The trio had been discussing actors from the latest superhero movies. They had brought Jeremy to a few, so even though he was generally ignorant about Hollywood he could actually keep up with the conversation. Soon the conversation turned to which of the many actors named Chris was the most attractive.

Geoff was on a long rant about Chris Hemsworth, gesturing wildly while leaning against Ryan’s shoulder. His feet were in Jack’s lap so he was sprawled across most of the couch. Jeremy has perched on the armrest beside Jack. She rolled her eyes when one of Geoff’s points had him almost kick her in the face. 

Leaning her forearms on Geoff’s shins she turned to Jeremy and asked. “Jeremy, gonna chime in? Who do think is the hottest Chris in the Avengers?”

“Hmm, you’re forgetting the Toms though. There is a bunch of them too and some of them are arguably hotter than the Chrises.” 

Ryan perked up at that. “Oh yeah Lil J? Any of them hot enough to ‘turn you gay?’”

Jeremy laughed at his teasing tone. “Nah, that honour belongs to a guy on my high school gymnastics team. Or at least, he was the one who made me realize I was bi. His name actually was Chris, come to think of it.”

Whatever reaction Jeremy was expecting from that announcement, groans and exclamations of “Goddammit!” were not on the list. His friend’s reaction surprised him, he hadn’t thought it would be an issue considering the main crew were all dating each other. 

Jack seemed to be the least upset, laughing instead of angrily mumbling. She explained the problem to Jeremy. “Ignore them, they’re just butthurt because they lost a bet to Gavin.”

“What the fuck were they betting on.”

“Gavin has a theory that everyone is a little bit gay. The rest of us were pretty sure you were straight, but he was determined to prove you weren’t.”

“That is a weird fucking thing to be betting on. None of you thought to just, I donno, ask me?” Jeremy hoped his voice sounded light hearted, but in reality his heart sunk faster than a lead weight. Gavin had been trying to see if he was gay. His mind flashed back to all the time they had been spending together. The steak out visits. Going out for lunches together. Oh god, not to mention the entirety of the heist tonight. Jeremy felt like he was going to be sick. 

He stayed just long enough to make his exit look natural, but he had no idea what he said or if he contributed much to the conversation. He made his way out of the event and onto the roof. He needed the cool air to collect his thoughts.

Jeremy was only alone for a minute or two. The door creaked open and a moment later Gavin was leaning against the balcony beside Jeremy. 

“Tonight was bloody brilliant Jeremy. The take so far is 5 million and it is only going to get bigger.”

“Awesome. A lot of hard work when into it, it is nice when it pays off.”

Gavin snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I sometimes think we work too hard to avoid doing real, honest work. But that is way less fun for less money, so why not?”

Jeremy laughed and there was a pause in the conversation as they looked out over the lights shining in the nearby harbour. Jeremy was awkward. Not sure what to say about the events of the heist. He wanted to apologize but he didn’t know what to say. 

It was Gavin that broke the silence. “You did good today Lil J. I know you joke about only being good as crew muscle, but you do so much more than that and tonight was a good example.”

Jeremy flushed red. “I didn’t do anything except gamble, drink and -” he cut himself off before he could say  _ make a huge fool of myself in front of you _ .

“Nah, you were able to spot and avoid guards. You didn’t stare at our crew members and give them away. And I always feel safe when you’re my back up. I know you can handle anything.”

“Thanks Gav, that means a lot.” Jeremy dropped his eyes to the floor and bit his lip. Gavin put a hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. The whole crew loves you and you contribute so much. Not just your skills, but you have such a positive attitude and work so hard. We all appreciate it.”

“Gavin. That… that means a lot buddy.” Jeremy had to swallow around a lump in his throat. His gut instinct was not to believe what he was hearing, but he trusted Gavin so much not to lie to him. 

“You know,” Gavin’s hand curled higher on his shoulder, almost cupping his neck, “We were interrupted before. Want to pick up where we left off?”

Jeremy didn’t think his face could get any redder, especially with some of his blood rushing in a distinctly  _ downward _ direction. He stumbled back a half step, enough to dislodge Gavin’s hand. He tried to laugh it off, but he knew it sounded forced. It just wasn’t fair of Gavin to flirt like this when he didn’t mean it. It was doing mean things to his heart.

“Oh, uh. Thanks, but Jack told me what you’ve been doing. If you had just asked if I was gay you would have won the bet a lot sooner. Anyway, I was actually thinking of heading home, I’ll see you around!”

Jeremy rushed off the roof before Gavin could give him an answer. He just went straight to his car and drove to the nearest McDonald’s where he stress ate too many chicken McNuggets. 

He just hoped that in the morning he and Gavin could laugh it off, Gavin would get his winnings from the bet, and they could go back to normal. Assuming normal was pining for not just Gavin, but the rest of the crew as well. 

God, Jeremy really was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I feel obligated to explain myself. Shortly after the last update came out I had a bunch of big life stuff happen all within a few weeks. I was in a car accident (no injuries but dealing with insurance and buying a new car sucked), I moved into a new apartment (just me and the cat!) I had two job interviews (didn't get the job) and I started seeing someone. 
> 
> So with all that I just... stopped writing for a bit. But I'm back now and I actually have an ending! Which you will get sooner than three months from now, promise!


	14. Shmuckle

A few months had passed since the casino heist. The mafia blamed an out-of-town rival for the attack and focused most of their energy and resources getting back on them. It made criminal life in Los Santos easier for the Fakes, who were able to take advantage of the family’s distraction to pull a heist or two on establishments in their territory without them noticing. 

Jeremy was back to hanging out with the crew. While he was dating Tracey he only got to hang out with them on nights where they didn’t have much to do. Tracey didn’t know about his irregular schedule, so it was easy to pretend to be working every night when really half the time he was playing games with the guys. Now he could go back to seeing them on weekends for beach days and bar nights.

He was still very much avoiding Gavin though. 

Jeremy could tell Gavin was trying to spend time with him or set up situations where they would be alone together. The thing is, Gavin is sneaky. He is very good at setting things up his own way. Luckily Jeremy knew the best way to counteract sneakiness is just playing dumb. A lot of people may mistake you for being blind or oblivious. Like when Gavin invites him to the pool and he shows up with Matt for what was clearly intended to be one-on-one time. Or intentionally missing hints about how Gavin was disappointed no one would go see a particular show with him but not offering to go with him either. The hardest one was making sure Gavin never caught him alone at the base.

It couldn’t last forever though. Jeremy started to let his guard down after so much time had passed with no incident. So when Gavin asked if he had plans for this weekend he stupidly said he didn’t. 

“Lovely! I wanted to take you to the new cafe on Main St. It has cats in it!”

Jeremy panicked and blurted out the first thing he could think of. “Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking of taking advantage of having no plans to clean the apartment. Spring cleaning and all.” It was February, and even in Los Santos no one would mistake the weather for Spring. “Lindsay would probably love to go, though. She likes cats.” 

It was an awkward evasion. Before now Gavin probably didn’t realize Jeremy was doing it on purpose but now there could be no doubt. Jeremy was dying a little bit at the disappointed look on Gavin’s face. 

“Oh, I see. I guess I’ll go ask her then.” He turned away and Jeremy couldn’t help but think he looked dejected. 

Jeremy decided to work on his bike to take his mind off of his Gavin problem. He was working in the garage when Jack joined him and asked what he was working on.

“Just doing a quick oil change. I also want to look at one of the brakes, I think it’s sticking a bit.”

“Cool, nice.” She crossed her arms and leaned on a toolbox. “So what’s going on with you and Gav?”

Jeremy dropped his wrench with a clang at the sudden question. “Uh- What? I don’t know what you mean.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Come on Lil J. You’ve been avoiding him and we both know it. And so does he. So what’s going on.”

Jeremy sighed. He rubbed a hand over his face, probably smearing grease on himself. “Honestly Jack? I did something embarrassing, and it’s too soon for it to be funny. I’m just being awkward I guess. I’ll try and be better.”

Jack’s skeptical look didn’t leave her face. “Gavin makes you do embarrassing stuff all the time. What could you possibly have done that is worse than the time he taped you to a wall? Before a meeting with a rival. And hiding behind a curtain. And then falling off said wall halfway through the meeting almost starting a shoot out?”

“Look, no one got hurt!” Jeremy was blushing. The crew loved bringing that one up. “I know, I’m being stupid. I’m sorry.”

“Is anything else going on?”

_ Yeah, I have a huge crush on your boyfriend and my gay ass is as subtle as a brick so I’m trying not to let everyone know. And when I say your boyfriend, I mean all of your boyfriends and you. NBD. _ “No, just got in my own head a bit.”

“I know you are a very private person, but it isn’t good to keep things to yourself. We’re a crew. We all care about you and want what’s best for you. You can talk to any of us with no judgment and we’ll listen.”

Jeremy knew she was referencing Tracey. He had never really talked to anyone about what had happened. It was just too awkward. He put on a big smile and said “Thanks Jack. I know I can trust you guys. I’ll try and open up more.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Jack patted his shoulder and the conversation turned to motorcycles. 

Before going home, Jeremy found Gavin and told him he would be delighted to visit the new cat cafe that weekend.

*****

Jeremy may or may not have adopted a cat at the cafe. It was cute and black and fluffy. 

Gavin may or may not have tried to name the cat Shmuckle. Jeremy named him Booker. 

*****

Jeremy was glad to be back to spending time with the crew without worrying about running into Gavin. Things were better than ever. He spent a tonne of time with the crew. Some weekends were entirely spent at the townhouse. The room on the first floor became unofficially his, although that is when he didn’t just crash on the sofa. He loved joining the crew for early Sunday breakfasts after late night game or move marathons. 

He spent time with the crew individually as well. Each person had different hobbies that suited him very well.

With Geoff Jeremy found himself touring the city and finding diamond-in-the-rough restaurants. They had their favourites, but they also explored to see any new ones or places too small to be on their maps. 

He and Jack loved to spend early mornings cruising along the coast or the desert on their cars or, more often, bikes. Jack taught him a few tricks. Jeremy used this as his opportunity to get his Monster Truck out and do stunts and jumps with it. 

He and Ryan became a force to be reckoned with in the criminal underground. The battle buddies were known to be a chaotic force in the city. The police dreaded getting a call about them because they knew whatever had happened was going to be messy. Even outside of work the two of them couldn’t seem to keep out of trouble. They didn’t have a set activity, but Jeremy knew whenever Ryan wanted to hang out it was going to be an adventure. 

The sparring matches with him and Michael continued. They were still evenly matched with opposing strengths, so it was always good to practice together. Michael was an excellent work out buddy. The two of them had similar personalities in that they would both push each other to keep going past where they wanted to give up. Jeremy had probably never been in as good shape. 

It turns out Booker loved the great outdoors and especially the beach. He was the crazy guy who took his cat swimming. Gavin would come on these beach trips and ended up making a successful instagram for his cat. The cat would also sit on Jeremy’s shoulder for hikes, and because Gavin wanted to maximize his cat-time, the three of them ended up going on a few hikes around Chiliad. The beach days with Gavin were still the best. He loved seeing the other man in his swimsuit laying in the sun. 


End file.
